I don’t know if I would exactly deem Emma Lou unreliable, but she certainly demonstrates a lot of ambiguities in her attitudes towards race that paint her as a pretty hypocritical and confused character.
For instance, she resents her dark skin and pure black features, yet she seeks black solidarity. While she hates being a dark-skinned girl herself, she has a strong desire to belong in the larger black community, which becomes clear when she goes to California to attend college. She expresses a strong interest in the black people living in California and really seeks out other black students at her university to befriend, yet when Hazel Mason befriends her, Emma Lou feels actual revulsion at her ‘vulgarity’ (Hazel says and does nothing vulgar, unless you classify imperfect English grammar and speaking loudly as particularly vulgar behavior) and does not want to be friends with her. Also, for someone who seems to care so much about establishing herself in and belonging to the black community, Emma Lou cares a lot about what the white students think of her, which can be seen in the way she monitors her speaking while talking to Hazel at the registrar’s office.
