The heart of Who Fears Death is the ethnic conflict and the day to day racism that accompanies this. (Or vice versa—the day to day racism that exists in the Seven Rivers Kingdom and the ethnic conflict that arises.) The Kingdom, which exists in a future version of Darfur, in Sudan—Daib’s town in fact recalls this in its name of Durfa—is populated primarily by the light-skinned Nuru, who are the dominant class, and the dark-skinned Okeke, who are subservient to the Nuru.

This subservience exists in several ways: primarily, within the confines of the Kingdom proper—“in the West”—the Okeke as a people exist solely as slaves of the Nuru as a people; individual Nuru do not own individual Okeke, but rather all Okeke are simply slaves to all Nuru. There is no opportunity to escape bondage—as we see toward the end of the novel, the bondage is such a part of life in the Kingdom that the Nuru will simply order any random Okeke to perform tasks for them, and may not even wait to see if they do. Secondly, to the east exist free Okeke towns; however, it is suggested that living in these towns is more like living in exile communities, as the towns exist far apart from one another in the desert, relying on capture stations and other means to procure water.