Wallace Thurman's 'The Blacker the Berry': A Study of Colorism

This essay delves into Wallace Thurman's novel, 'The Blacker the Berry,' exploring themes of racial discrimination, colorism, and hypocrisy within the African-American community during the Harlem Renaissance. The analysis focuses on the protagonist, Emma Lou Morgan, a dark-skinned woman facing prejudice due to her complexion. The essay highlights the internal and external biases, the impact of societal expectations, and the hypocrisy prevalent in the society of the time. It further discusses how Emma's own prejudices contribute to her isolation and examines the broader implications of colorism and racial discrimination, emphasizing the need for unity and understanding in a diverse society. Desklib offers a range of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, for students studying similar topics.

Running head: THE BLACKER THE BERRY
THE BLACKER THE BERRY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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THE BLACKER THE BERRY
Racism is one of the major setbacks of the modern world as a major population
addresses and advocates racism in their lives in some way or the other (Fredrickson). Right
from the Western countries to the African continent, every culture promotes the concept of
fairness and light skin in a major way especially for the female section of the society. The
females are expected to look in a particular manner that will make their appearance attractive
for their male counterparts and this defines the sense of beauty expected in the society. Even
the section of population who have black skin themselves advocate fair skin and their affinity
to get lighter skin to get a hold in the society. The novel The Blacker The Berry by African-
American novelist Wallace Thurman is one of the few pieces written that focusses on the
likeness of white skin among the Africans and also the prejudice of people for black skin
(Thurman). The major themes of the novel traces back to the prejudices and vices of the
society and the projection of colourism and racial discrimination within the black community
in association with the Harlem Renaissance. The following paragraphs highlight the impact
of such discrimination on the minds of the people, the level of hypocrisy that prevails in the
minds of the people and also traces whether such discrimination should be present in the
society in the modern age.
The novel speaks about the story of Emma Lou Morgan, a young woman with niggerish
skin living in Idaho. The whole novel revolves around her life, her college days at USC and her
relocation to Harlem, New York city for work along with her struggle to find her existence during
the time of Harlem Renaissance in front of the discrimination and sidelining faced by her because
of the lighter skin African –American people (Smith). The Harlem Renaissance was a revolution
centralized around intellectual, social and artistic explosion that took place around 1920s and
which included the African-American cultural expressions. The revolution and renaissance gave
the path to the Negros and the Africans living in the country and gave them the right to fight for
their own existence against the cultural hindrance by the light skin Americans.

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The novel was written within the spectrum of Harlem Revolution and deals with the
different aspects of intra and inter racial prejudices that has captured the minds of the people of
the time. Emma Lou Morgan is a dark skinned girl whose ethnicity runs to African-American
origin and raised in the western frontiers of America. She was born to a light-skinned mother and
a dark-skinned father but as she inherited the skin tone of her father, she has always been
ridiculed and looked down upon by her family (Rottenberg). Even her own prejudices and the
culture in which she had been raised made her believe in the fact that she had no place in the
minds and hearts of the people of the society due to her skin colour and ethnic origin. The words
like Ink spitter and the concepts that brown girls are only good for making money by their parents
speak up for the lack of respect that the society has for the brown and black skinned people
(Lamar). The tone and temperament of the conversations that had been spoken about in the
novel clearly indicated the culture and associations prevalent in the times and the background
that led to the outbreak of the African-American war of cultural independence that started in the
late 1960s and 1970s. The derogatory comments and calling the ladies as prostitutes who are
only suitable for the black pimps were some of the bitter realities of the novel that the author had
been writing about.
The novel also dealt with the immense hypocrisy that had been levied within the minds of
the people of the black community as in the case of Emma Lou Morgan. When Emma found a
friend in her university, who irrespective of her origin and ethnicity wanted to be her friend and
share all their lives and ideologies, it was she who did not want to get even closer to her as she
feared the ridicule that would come from the other classmates of her university due to her
unpolished and rogue behaviour (Gasman and Abiola). Hazel Mason, who also belonged to the
same ethnic group as Emma could have shared their lives as well as their insecurities together
as they had to face the same struggles. The two women in their journey in the University of
Southern California always wanted to be friends with the rest of the population but when they
found that they were being sidelined and had only option to find solace in each other, Emma due
to her own racial discrimination made sure to isolate herself from her companion. The hypocrisy
that lies in the minds of the black African-American due to the mindset that has been induced in

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them from the very childhood states that under no circumstances can a rogue and unpolished girl
be treated as sober and should be kept at a distance (Lippi-Green). The embedded
discrimination lying at the heart of the people makes the novelist wonder at the level of two-sided
mindsets that discriminate not only one person from a particular culture from another but also
creates boundaries and lines of sepraration within the own cultures. This kind of intra and inter
cultural differences make the whole society pitch against one another interfering with the
dedication and peace that the society demands from the population of the world.
The discrimination that had been prevalent in the society was mainly focussed upon the
discriminations directed towards the black and African people from the view point of the white
Americans but the kind of discrimination that was prevalent among the blacks for each other in
terms of their skin complexion and ethnicity was generally unspoken and what made the novelist
frame such a realist approach to the overall concept with its due credit to the given time.
The novel could have been a mere sympathetic approach to the character of Emma due
to the amount of hypocrisy she had been facing but the utter hypocrisy of her character and her
own sense of discrimination made her a living and breathing character of mass that demands
both respect and ridicule for the same personality. The themes of the novel mainly deals with the
level of hypocrisy that the minds of the people holds for the other people from the same or other
ethnicity and origins. The novel presents a bitter but factual picture of the America that resided
before the cultural independence of the African-Americans and the level of dual behaviour that
made the novel one of the most read in the times.
The novelist also reverberated one of the most controversial topics of the era in the
society related to the selective marriage that had been in the trends in most of the families of the
society to eliminate any trace of African-American behaviour. The families always wanted to
eliminate any traces of black and African American ancestor from the family ties due to the
ultimate prejudiced attitude of the people of the society (Boyd-Franklin). The attitude of Emma’s
grandmother towards her made her believe in the fact that it is her mistake to be born black, a
trait that has nothing to do with her and is not her mistake in any sense of the term. The novel is
a resonance of the topic that is prevalent in the era of the modern society and that is one of the

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major issues of the people who are always on the strive of discriminating people in respect of the
their differences (Yan, Yan, and Bissell).
In the world, there are a number of people who are different from one another in respect
of caste, creed, culture and complexion. However, in this world, the people strive to be together
forgetting the difference and uniting on the factors that lead to the prevalence of peace and
harmony. Inspite of all the efforts done by the leaders of the times, the people and society have
always put their opinions against the harmony and unity of people irrespective of their culture
leading to the difference and discrimination that should be avoided at all cost within the
dimensions of the society that is now based on hypocrisy (Price and Sydney).
In conclusion, it can be highlighted that discrimination and racial prejudice is a part of the
society developed in the novel The Blacker The Berry by Wallace Thurman where the
protagonist faced a huge amount of racial discrimination due to her dark complexion and half
African origin by her society but when she had the opportunity to make someone else feel good
about their own culture, she chose to be like the other members of the society showing her
amount of discrimination. The novel made the society face the bitter truth of discrimination and
hypocrisy prevalent among the people of the society of the times.

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Reference
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Fredrickson, George M. Racism: A short history. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Gasman, Marybeth, and Ufuoma Abiola. "Colorism within the historically Black colleges and
universities (HBCUs)." Theory Into Practice 55.1 (2016): 39-45.
Lamar, Kendrick. "The Blacker the Berry." To Pimp a Butterfly(2015).
Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an accent: Language, ideology and discrimination in the
United States. Routledge, 2012.
Price, Richard, and Sidney W. Mintz. "The birth of African-American culture." African-
American Religion. Routledge, 2013. 46-62.
Rottenberg, Catherine. "Wallace Thurman's The Blacker the Berry and the Question of the
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(2013): 59-74.
Smith, Monesca. "The Blacker the Berry?." Journal of Colorism Studies 1.1 (2015): 1.
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