Breakout

Through its use of multiple formats and perspectives, the novel portrays the way racism, bias, and privilege, both implicit and overt, can create harm for individuals and communities. In the beginning of the novel, Nora’s letters to future Wolf Creek residents convey her privilege. As a lifelong resident and daughter of the prison superintendent, she is given automatic respect; because she has grown up in a place where most people look like her and have had similar experiences, her only knowledge of prejudice and discrimination is academic. In school, she has been taught about the heroes of civil disobedience but not that they went to jail for their convictions, and in conversations with Elidee, she reveals how her upbringing has sheltered her from knowing about issues of police brutality and given her preconceived notions of the Bronx as full “gangs roaming the streets” like a “Spike Lee movie” (286). In this way, the novel shows how privilege can even create harm for those who benefit from it, by keeping them ignorant of other perspectives.

Wolf Creek’s residents, who are nearly all white, enjoy the privileges of living in a town that benefits economically from prison without thinking much about its inmates.