The Weight of Blood

The Weight of Blood explores the legacy of racism and segregation in one small, isolated community and also how power, race, and racism function within that community. Specifically, the novel delves into ways white people have sometimes skirted laws intended to integrate public spaces. For example, by adhering to federal law and integrating their public schools, the town of Springville projects the image that it values equality. However, the citizens continue to segregate important events such as the high school prom by hosting it privately and thus admitting only white students. The racially segregated prom is easy for the rest of the country to ignore until Springville High School is in the news due to Jules’s racist bullying, at which point the nation’s attention turns not just to that incident but to larger issues such as the segregated prom. Unfortunately, the students’ original idea to integrate it (which came from Wendy) was not born of a genuine desire for progressive change but out of a desire to repair the school’s (and the students’) damaged reputation. As such, the integrated prom does not go well and ends in carnage fueled by some even more dramatic racist spectacles cooked up by