A Fine Membrane
...I began to feel black and blue, big and black, black and ugly. Had they done that to me? Had somebody else? Had I let them” (5)? Her confusion is clearly demonstrated in that particular quote. She was not sure if she was truly wanted at this institution or was there strictly out of obligation on the school’s behalf. As time drew on, the notion of skin color seemed to diminish among her peers. “‘Well, as far as I’m concerned,’ one girl after another would say, ‘it doesn’t matter to me if somebody’s white, black green or purple. I mean people are just people’” (83). Although it did not magically suppress all of her confusions about being black, it did put her mind at ease for the time being. She seemed to feel accepted and comfortable with being a black individual. However, just as Lorene had begun to get comfortable with the fact that skin color was nothing more than a color, reality had struck her hard. Once she returned home for the summer vacation immediately preceding her last year at St. Paul’s, being black was suddenly made prominent once again. While serving as a waitress at the Hearthglow DeVille, both the customers and employees made her skin color known. “A few customers told me with a leer that they preferred dark meat. I was back to black and white in America as I’d known it before [...]” (156). Lorene’s experiences had thrown her to and fro in a whirlpool of confusion and frustration. In the end however, she was able to come to a secure view on what being black means. But St. Paul’s would keep me inside my black skin, that fine, fin...