The Curse of Blackness

Emma Lou's hatred of her blackness, in The Blacker the Berry, makes her try the impossible to whiten her black face because she is discriminated twice for being woman and being too black. In Black No More, it is impossible for Max/Matt to marry Helen and make upward mobility if he does not turn into white. The obsession with skin colour reaches a point that the whole African American community stands eagerly in turns to undergo Dr. Crookman's Black-No-More to eliminate their blackness. However, those attempts are futile; Emma Lou's attempts to escape her blackness are in vain as long as skin colour is something unchangeable. In Max/Matt's world, whiteness is achieved through a scientific process, but hatred towards the whitened blacks does not disappear.