Color-coded hearts - color consciousness among Blacks

Black Issues in Higher Education, July 11, 1996 by Gaynelle Evans

When Black slaves came to this country

stripped of any connection with the

history and culture which gave them a

sense of place in the universe, they

heeded the human urge to define

themselves.

The Africans were bound by the rules of slavery

and subject to strange masters in a strange land,

where people of another color had all the power, and

they had none. The lines of demarcation were simple,

until human nature interfered.

Slaves and masters had children, living proof of

both the burden of Black powerlessness and the white

transgression of misogynistic lust, or love. The very

existence of their offspring should have helped to

bridge the gap and blur the lines between the two

races. Instead, it created such confusion, that, in 1805,

Thomas Jefferson, himself the father of many biracial

children and one of this nation's founders, devised an

algebraic equation to define the generation when

racially mixed blood becomes white. In the end,

however, even his numbers meant nothing without

emancipation.

By the time freedom came, African Americans had

begun to make sense of it for themselves. Freedom

from slavery, they found, did not shelter families, feed

children or save lives. Race did. African Americans

established a social hierarchy where skin color determined

rank. The closer the skin color to white, the

more acceptable the person. That culture and those

rules, though long hidden in the hearts of many

African American families, are the basis for Dorothy

West's "The Wedding."

Confusion in `The Oval'

Set in Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, "The

Wedding" crashes the gates of color-coded thinking as

one community wrestles its fears to the ground. The

characters are the families of "The Oval," an insular

area of the Vineyard reserved for members of the

Black bourgeoisie who could afford to have summer

homes there. They were of all skin colors. Many were

second generation professionals who could trace

their family trees to white families or those of free,

educated Blacks. But all of them had color-coded

hearts.

In "The Wedding," Shelby Coles, the privileged

daughter of one of The Oval's first families is about

to marry a white jazz musician. Described by West as

a beautiful woman with the "rose-pink skin, golden

hair and dusk-blue eyes" of her maternal

great-grandmother, Shelby has the conscience of a

woman of color, As the day of her marriage draws

near, she begins to question why she has not fallen

in love with a Black man.

It's through Shelby's interactions with other

"Ovalites" that the bride-to-be finds her answer. And

they are a confused bunch. Shelby's father, Clark

Coles, M.D. remains with his light-skinned, tightlipped

wife only for appearances. He's been in love with his

self-sacrificing, brown-skinned nurse for decades.

Corinne, Shelby's mother, is bitter that she herself was

forced to marry a man so brown in order to ensure the

financial well-being of her progeny. Yet, she cannot

understand why her daughter would choose to

marry "out of the race," when so many

young Black men from fine families were interested.

The Coles family matriarch, Gram, is a woman lost in

color-coded bitterness. The daughter of a plantation master

and a slave, she believes that she is an aristocrat

"surrounded by descendants of slaves,

with nowhere to die but among them...." Gram is

sure that a white son-in-law will help her reestablish

her racial identity as white. It is a desire born of a

coldness of heart that will not allow her to touch or

otherwise acknowledge her brown-skinned great-grandchildren.

Prolific octogenarian

Obsessive attitudes about color and background are not

limited to the "best" of the Oval's families. West has not

forgotten to include a villain in dark brown. Lute, the

nouveau-riche wife-beating father of three lovely young

girls by different white women, has set his cap for Shelby.

He'll do -- anything including committing murder -- to stop

the wedding.

While much of "The Wedding" may read like a soap

opera, the novel is based upon West's own brand of social

commentary on the Black middle class. As a year-round

resident of Martha's Vineyard since 1943, she's earned the

right to use the resort island, long the haven for middle-class

African-American families, as the backdrop for social

drama. How much of the novel is based upon fact will

remain subject to the reader's experience with color-codes

and imagination.

This marriage of

fiction and commentary

comes almost

naturally to West and

most of her friends

and peers, which have

included the likes of

Zora Neale Hurston,

Langston Hughes and

Countee Cullen.

West's first novel,

"The Living is Easy,"

was published in

1948. Fourteen years

prior, West founded

Challenge, one of the

most influential magazines

of its time. In

1937, she started New

Cballenge, with Richard

Wright as her associate

editor. She

published "The

Richer, the Poorer," a

collection of short stories

and autobiographical

pieces in

1994. Ms. West is 89

years old.

Black Issues In Higher Education

Top Ten Books

On Campus

                                                        Weeks

                                                       On List



1.  WAITING TO EXHALE                                     26

    Terry McMillan - Pocket Books, $5.95

2.  AND THIS TOO SHALL PASS.                              14

    E. Lynn Harris - Anchor/Doubleday, $23.95

3.  WHEN DEATH COMES STEALING                             26

    Valerie Wilson Wesley - G.P. Putnam & Sons, $5.99

4.  NEVER SATISFIED. HOW AND WHY MEN CHEAT                 4

    Michael Baisdan - Legacy Publishing, $13.95

5.  JUST AS I AM                                          62

    E. Lynn Harris - Anchor Books, $10.95

6.  BROTHERS & SISTERS                                    14

    Bebe Moore Campbell - Putnam, $5.95

7.  COFFEE WILL MAKE YOU BLACK                            26

    April Sinclair - Avon, $10

8.  SISTERS & LOVERS                                       4

    Connie Briscoe - One World/Ballantine, $5.95

9.  ACTS OF FAITH: DAILY MEDITATIONS                      64

    FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR

    Lyania Vanzant - Fireside/Simon & Schuster, $9

10. BODY AND SOUL: THE BLACK WOMEN'S                      38

    GUIDE TO PHYSICAL HEALTH AND

    EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

    Linda Villarosa - Harper/Perennial, $20

                                                        Last

                                                       Position



1.  WAITING TO EXHALE                                      1

    Terry McMillan - Pocket Books, $5.95

2.  AND THIS TOO SHALL PASS.                               2

    E. Lynn Harris'- Anchor/Doubleday, $23.95

3.  WHEN DEATH COMES STEALING                              3

    Valerie Wilson Wesley - G.P. Putnam & Sons, $5.99

4.  NEVER SATISFIED. HOW AND WHY MEN CHEAT                 -

    Michael Baisdan - Legacy Publishing, $13.95

5.  JUST AS I AM                                           5

    E. Lynn Harris - Anchor Books, $10.95

6.  BROTHERS & SISTERS                                     6

    Bebe Moore Campbell - Putnam, $5.95

7.  COFFEE WILL MAKE YOU BLACK                             4

    April Sinclair - Avon, $10

8.  SISTERS & LOVERS                                       -

    Connie Briscoe - One World/Ballantine, $5.95

9.  ACTS OF FAITH: DAILY MEDITATIONS                       9

    FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR

    Lyania Vanzant - Fireside/Simon & Schuster, $9

10. BODY AND SOUL: THE BLACK WOMEN'S                      10

    GUIDE TO PHYSICAL HEALTH AND

    EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

    Linda Villarosa - Harper/Perennial, $20