Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry deals with the personal struggles a dark skinned girl faces with white people and with colored people. Emma Lou grew up in a family that discarded her as a disgrace just because her skin is darker than anyone else’s and even her own mother and grandmother used harsh chemicals to try and lighten her skin color. Her mindset has always been that she will never amount to as much as anyone else just because of her skin color. Even though she puts lighter skinned people above herself, she claims that she doesn’t, “mind being black, being a Negro necessitated having colored skin, but she did mind being too black” (21). If not even her own race and her own family could accept her, how could she learn to accept herself?
Like Irene from Nella Larson’s Passing, Emma Lou is an unreliable protagonist. She never admits to herself that she hates being a dark skinned black girl and justifies her hatred towards other black people by saying they are just not educated at her level. This is evident in the scene where she meets Hazel at UCLA and immediately dismisses her because of her dark skin and the way she talks. Since the reader only sees how Hazel is through the eyes of Emma Lou, the reader is misinformed of what is true and what is not true.
After Emma Lou moves to Harlem, she meets John who quickly helps her with finding and home and showing her around the city. Although John only showed her the most kindness she’s ever received in her life, Emma Lou breaks up with him after two days because of his dark skin. When the light skinned Alva shows some interest in Emma Lou, she falls completely in love with him even though he is pretty much embarrassed of her and her dark skin. Emma Lou never truly realizes this and yet still continues to love him for mostly his light skin. She is hypocritical in her ways and racist to her own kind. That is why she is an unreliable protagonist.
