Philosophy professor Jill Stauffer created the term “ethical loneliness” and wrote a book about it entitled Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of Not Being Heard (2015). Stauffer defines this as “the isolation one feels when […] as a violated person or as one member of a persecuted group” one has been neglected by humanity or by those who “have power over one’s life’s possibilities” (192).

Rankine feels this at various moments in the book when white people whom she regards as allies disappoint her. The feeling occurs during a Jackie Sibblies Drury play when her white friend and companion refuses to join the other white audience members onstage, as the playwright has requested through one of her actors. She also has this feeling when thinking about white people’s indifference to inhumanity, such as children from Mexico and Central America being held in detention camps at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Three book chapters bear the title “liminal spaces.” A liminal space is a transitional location. Rankine’s first chapter focuses on one of the most common liminal spaces—an airport. In these spaces, she asks various white men what they think about white male privilege. Her second chapter focuses on public spaces—Starbucks and parks—where various white citizens call the police on Black people whom they do not wish to have present.