Small Great Things

Intimately connected with the theme of visibility and invisibility comes the heart of the book: an examination of the various types and degrees of racism. Part of Kennedy’s main character arc is her transition from harboring an invisible bias on her own part, in the sense that it is something she has not been aware of or turned her attention to. This implicit bias, as the study Howard cites says, is far more widespread and insidious because it isn’t visible in the same way as a man with a swastika tattoo, and often isn’t even visible to those who participate in it or benefit from it. Ruth, throughout the novel, is attempting to get Kennedy to see these more implicit forms of racism; for example, Ruth takes her shopping, so she can see the way guards follow her. Later, in her own lowest moment, Kennedy herself tries to make more of her privilege visible by going to a place she doesn’t fit in.

By the end of the novel, as Kennedy makes her appeal to the jury, she makes her own implicit biases explicit by admitting to them and placing them on display. Ruth also realizes in this moment that in order for the jury to see implicit bias, they needed someone who looks like themselves to reveal it.

Throughout the novel, there are many forms of heredity that make their appearance. Ruth, who grew up in a rougher neighborhood, wants to give her son the things that she didn’t have growing up, and so they move to a wealthy neighborhood and put Edison in a good school from day one, so that he will belong. However, as we find out, these things don’t ultimately make him accepted due to his skin color. In fact, Ruth finds that moving to the neighborhood they did may have put Edison at a disadvantage, making him less prepared for the racist moments he would inevitably encounter.

There is also the question of inherited blame and ideals. Ruth states that every baby is born beautiful, and that includes Davis, regardless of his parents being white supremacists. Then, in court, she makes her outburst about Davis being better off dead than being raised by the Bauers. The idea of nature versus nurture comes into play, and, by the end, we see that change is still possible for Turk, meaning that no inheritance need be set in stone.

In Brit, we see the way that inherited DNA and racial identity can be something that is invisible as well. If Edison cannot escape his visible difference, by the end of the novel, we see Brit unable to escape her invisible difference, and ends up dying because of this. In a striking parallel, Ruth inherited her father’s light skin, while Adisa inherited their mother’s dark skin, and in many ways, this trait seems to have shaped their life trajectories, given the society they grew up in and its obsession with skin tone, both within the black community and without.

Although this makes its appearance early and then largely fades from the novel, the theme of beauty is an interesting theme nonetheless. Ruth first brings it up in the opening chapter of the main part of the novel, discussing the most beautiful baby she’s ever seen as also being a baby with severe physical deformities, making it incompatible with life. This baby does not have a face, and instead has a mouth where the ear should be. Despite the possibly disturbing and un-beautiful nature of the baby’s physical appearance, Ruth still claims this baby is the most beautiful, and insists that beauty is all about who is doing the looking, rather than who is being looked at. Rather than a physical characteristic, then, the novel discusses inner beauty. In Turk’s chapters, there is mention of the physically attractive characteristics of Brit, and yet her hate makes her unattractive. Moreover, by the end, when Turk finds out she’s half-black, he struggles with the fact that he still finds her just as attractive, and loves her just as much. Ultimately, however, this doesn’t matter, as Brit now perceives herself as figuratively ugly due to not being fully white.