Social Hierarchy In The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead's novel, The Nickel Boys, is a powerful and heartbreaking story about the atrocities that took place at a reform school in Florida during the Civil Rights era. The novel follows the lives of two African American boys, Elwood Curtis and Turner, as they navigate the brutal and unjust social hierarchy at the Nickel Academy. Harriet and Jaimie are two characters in the novel who also respond distinctly to the social hierarchy, and their responses contribute to the reader's understanding of the text as a whole. Throughout the novel, the characters' reactions to the hierarchy they are placed in reflect the larger societal issues of racism, inequality, and corruption. Some characters resist the system, while others adapt to it in

Jamie is a Latinx character who is a ward of the nickel academy, he gets bounced around the school due to the segregational system. He is too fair skinned for the colored side of campus, but not light enough for the white side. Jaimie defies the racist Black and white logic of the time, so much so that even the staff didn't know what to do with him, “He bounced around Nickel a lot—his mother was Mexican, so they didn’t know what to do with him. On his arrival, he was put in with the white kids, but his first day working in the lime fields he got so dark that Spencer had him reassigned to the colored half. Jaimie spent a month in Cleveland, but then Director Hardee toured one day, took a look at that light face among the dark faces, and had him sent back to the white camp. Spencer bided his time and tossed him back a few weeks later. ‘I go back and forth,’ Jaimie said…‘One day they’ll make up their minds, I suppose.’” When something or someone like Jaimie comes along to defy the cement system set in place, they don’t know what to do. Jaime doesn't fit into either predetermined box, most times, the reader forgets that he exists. The book stylistically does not mention him often, to show that he doesn't fit into the categories, and therefore is primarily irrelevant, because he cannot help to illustrate the point of segregation. Jaimie is a kid born into a bad situation, but eventually the system he was stuck in changed him. During one of the few times Jaimie is mentioned, it is when a group of boys is trying to decide which one of the staffer’s they would poison if they had the chance. A couple weeks later, one of the staffers turns up poisoned, the same one that Jaimie consistently said he would poison. He denied ever doing anything, but some of the boys suspected the truth, “Elwood and Desmond continued to press him, but his version did not change. It was hard to