Prior to her arrival in Manifest, Abilene’s early life is not easy. She is constantly on the move with her father, so she never becomes overly familiar with any place or community. To help her make sense of the world, Abilene divides people, places, and ideas into a system of what she calls universals. These can be viewed as benign stereotypes that often prove true. However, universals viewed through the perspective of a group like the KKK became virulent.

At school, she introduces the concept: “There’s certain things every school’s got, same as any other. Universals, I call them” (26). Abilene assumes that every school has certain types of teachers and certain types of students. She also sees universals in children and adults: “Kids are universals too, in a way. Every school has the ones that think they’re a little better than everybody else and the ones who are a little poorer than everybody else. And somewhere in the mix there’s usually ones that are pretty decent” (26). Her taxonomy also serves as an alarm system and a set of rules to guide her. When she sees an example of unthinking compliance that unsettles her, she thinks about how people who follow without critical thought are people she has spent time trying to avoid.