Throughout the novel, the author highlights the commodity of the Black body, which is rendered vulnerable through its social positionality associated with slavery. The institutionalization of slavery requires the Black body to exist at the discretion of white people. The physical location of the Black body and even its continued existence is subjected to whims of white slave owners. Where a Black body is permitted or required to exist is also up to white discretion, which has devastating effects on the abilities of slaves to form personal relationships. The author constructs the Black body as threatened, constantly vulnerable to emotional and physical violence. Much of the safety that the Black body can obtain is dependent upon knowing what white people are thinking, demonstrating the fragile social positionality in which slaves cannot always foresee physical and emotional violence. Although all slaves within this novel can be subjected to such trauma, the author is careful to point out that the female Black body exists in a state that is even more vulnerable than the Black male body, as female slaves are subject to sexual violence in a way that male slaves are not.

The author suggests that the precarious nature of the Black body stems from its commodification through the institutionalization of slavery.