Blue Black Skin Tone
Emma-Lou has a dark, blue-black skin tone. To those who are colorist, including Emma-Lou's mother, this is a symbol of being lower class and not socially desirable. As her mother fears it is also a symbol of undesirability to the opposite sex as most successful men want to marry light skinned women.
Light Skin
Emma-Lou's mother has light skin and European ancestry, as does her grandmother. Lighter skin is a symbol of this ancestry and a symbol of class and desirability. It symbolizes the upper classes and also is a symbol of the kind of women that successful men want to be with.
Emma-Lou's Skin Color
To her mother, Emma-Lou's dark skin color is a symbol of her father. This is a negative symbol in this regard because her father dumped her and her mother, and left them. Emma-Lou's skin color is the same as her father's and is therefore a lifelong symbol of him.
Acting Like A Minstrel
Acting like a minstrel, in other words, having a particular kind of personality and behavior, is a symbol of being lower class, and therefore the kind of person that the lighter skinned girls at USC did not want to symbolize black people.
Skin Tone Motif
The author explains several ways in which people were viewed not only as black and white but to a colorist person as different degrees of black that denotes social standing and desirability. We are told early on that Emma-Lou is considered a blue black color and this is not considered socially desirable. She is attracted to a man who is a "yella" which means that his skin tone was far more light. There is also the example of Emma-Lou's grandmother who is a blue vein, which means that her skin was so light that the veins could be seen through it. This was the most desirable of all.because it was the lightest. The motif of skin tone is evident throughout the book and also explains the decisions made by the main characters.
