As a white, male police officer, Jesse represents the multifaceted mechanisms for violent oppression of black Americans. Since childhood, as Jesse reflects, the myth of white supremacy has gone relatively undisturbed. However, in recent years, Jesse and other white people sense a "black suspicion" (236) that they are fighting an unspoken "war" (238) against black Americans. White people around Jesse have become "much quieter than they were" (236) about their racism and have changed "the tone of their jokes" (236) about black people. This “suspicion” and change in attitude have come in response to open demonstrations by black Americans against their discrimination and oppression—actions referred to collectively as the Civil Rights Movement.

The fictional character Big Jim C. is a play on both Jim Clark, the racist sheriff of Dallas County, Alabama in the 1960s; and Jim Crow, the name of segregation laws in the United States. In his attempt to make an example of the demonstrators' "ringleader" (232), Big Jim C. becomes a metaphor for the structural racism, or segregation laws, and its perpetrator: the police force. Jesse clings to both structural racism and its mechanisms in the hopes of preserving his white masculinity, and the faltering of both gives him severe anxiety.