Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world: (ed. my stanzas and line breaks which are probably not right) When day comes, we ask ourselves Where can we find light in this never ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We braved the belly of the beast. We've learned that quiet isn't always peace And the norms and notions of what "just is," isn't always justice. And yet the dawn is hours before we knew it, Somehow we do it, Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed A nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time, Where a skinny black girl descended from slaves And raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, Only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, But that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose, To compose a country committed To a
N.K. Jemisin brings many tools to her world-building, especially a focus on how power is distributed and contested by the clans of her peoples. The manifestation of power is evident throughout The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms , but one illustration in particular is the division of nobles in the Consortium. Yeine comments on the inequity of their distribution, citing as an example that the city of Sky (including the palace) has one delegate, whereas the entirety of the High North continent has only two. A delegate’s task is “to speak for themselves and their neighboring lands,” but one fundamental question is whether the needs of these conquered nations can be accurately expressed in the only language of the Consortium: Senmite, the language of the Amn that “the Arameri had imposed… on the world” (ch 6). Jemisin mentions a number of peoples and languages in this first book of The Inheritance Trilogy including Nirva (a common tongue of the High North), the aforementioned Senmite, Tema