Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of racism, rape, and sexual assault.

The gold ball earrings from Hazel’s grandmother are a symbolic nod to the book’s theme of The Weight of Family Legacy. For Hazel, “The earrings were her only physical connection to her lineage, her only inheritance—her only offering of wealth to any offspring” (29). At the same time, the earrings are a reminder of Hazel’s traumatic family legacy. Hazel’s rape is not the first in the family, as evidenced by Hazel’s own blue-gray eyes, which the book says are “proof of forced miscegenation generations before” (29). While the earrings are a symbol of family pride, they are also a symbol of family pain. Violence against Black women is a fundamental part of Hazel’s family legacy. The fact that the earrings end up going from Hazel to Kitty to Elise—herself a survivor of police brutality and racism—underscores this legacy.

Although they may be symbolic of a fraught family legacy, the earrings are still a valuable part of Hazel’s and, later, Kitty’s identity. After Kitty and Nathan wed, Nathan forces Kitty to replace the gold ball earrings with fancier earrings he has purchased. In this moment, Nathan establishes his dominance—one might even say his ownership as her husband—over Kitty.