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Maybe she would have been able to endure all this if it weren’t for everyone’s obsession with lightness … [P]eople believing ridiculous things, like drinking coffee or eating chocolate while pregnant might turn a baby dark. …But none of that mattered when the white men came for him, so how could she care about lightness after that?
This quote occurs in Chapter One, as a teenage Desiree reflects on why she wants to leave Mallard. Desiree feels somewhat trapped by the town’s focus on lightness, and this colorism bothers her for a few powerful reasons. Firstly, she believes that colorism is foolish and that prejudicial thinking makes people believe unreasonable things. Secondly, she finds the obsession with lightness hypocritical. She sees the people in Mallard having great pride in their lightness, as though it sets them apart or gives them power. But she witnessed her father, who was very light-skinned, die at the hands of hateful white men, so she sees that light-skinned privilege is an illusion. On some level, she sees the prejudice inherent in the town of Mallard as part of the same hatred that cost her father his life
And maybe her mother was right about the world’s immeasurable cruelties. She had already been dealt her portion; she could see that Desiree’s was on its way and did not want a dark boy to hasten it. Or maybe her mother was just like everyone else who found dark skin ugly and strove to distance herself from it.
This quote takes place in Chapter Two after Adele drives Early away, telling Desiree that she can’t date a dark-skinned boy. Here, Desiree can’t tell if her mother is trying to protect her from the world’s prejudice—a world that believes that dark-skinned Black people are inferior to Black people with lighter skin—or if her mother herself is prejudiced. This illustrates the way that the townspeople of Mallard, who came together to create a safe space for light-skinned Black people, in many ways replicate racist attitudes toward people who are darker than they are. Desiree is conflicted: she is interested in Early and he brings her joy, but she’s unsure if a relationship with him is worth it if it will only increase her already significant suffering
In the dark, you could never be too black. In the dark, everyone was the same color.
This quote takes place in Chapter Five, after Jude reflects on the lengths she went to lighten her skin as a child, and how nothing worked. When Reese tells her she has beautiful skin, she reflects on how much she hates to be called beautiful, not believing that anyone could genuinely find her beautiful because of her dark skin. After a lifetime of being bullied and tortured for being darker than the other kids, she only feels safe in the dark. She remembers kissing Lonnie in the dark and feels a sort of affinity with darkness, as though only under the cover of darkness is she able to fully be herself. Away from the prying eyes of both white people and light-skinned Black people, she’s able to escape the colorism that has harmed her since she moved to Mallard as a child.
