Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry explicitly discusses the phenomenon of intra-racial prejudice on the basis of skin color. Emma Lou was raised in a family of black elitists, who believed that they had more power, were more beautiful and were worth more than other blacks because of their lightness. Emma Lou despite her darkness, and filled with self loathing, carried on these beliefs well into her adult life.
The third chapter of the book is titled “Alva” after a character of that name. This character is a light-skinned, ethnically ambiguous, attractive man. He and Emma Lou meet…. the dichotomy of their “relationship” is heavily influenced by their perspectives of blackness and the value placed on different kinds of black people. In this respect, Emma Lou and Alva actually think the same, like many others: light is better, blackness is inherently bad. The closer one is to white, the better. So when Alva, a man who characteristically takes advantage of others for his own amusement and gain, appears to have noticed her, Emma Lou latches on to him. She is attached to him because to her, he is the perfect man– a person of color she could legally be with, but not black looking in the slightest– and the perfect man could only take interest in someone who is worthy of noticing. So his noticing her builds up a certain amount of confidence in her, as she began to imagine her life with purpose, someone who loved her for who she was and would fulfill her familial dreams of whitening her bloodline. However, of course at the end of the chapter doesn’t even remember her.
Alva’s chapter redirects the plot of the novel to the next chapter where she begins to reconstruct her understanding of herself, blackness and the way she views others.
