Light versus dark skin tone
Through motif, the reader learns about an insidious problem in the community. The Black community have started to give preferential treatment to light-skinned people, accepting the racist narratives that have kept their community wrongfully oppressed and mistreated. The irony of this motif is poignant, and it points to the need for encouragement and love within the Black community, because the racist narratives can destroy community from the inside out.
Bride as an ultimatum
Bride is depicted with the darkest possible skin possible, so black it looks blue. She represents the ultimatum for blackness, and therefore, her very existence exposes her parents' hateful point of view. Because they are ashamed of their blackness, her skin is highly embarrassing to them, and they mistreat her. She represents the internal rift between some black people and other black people. Ultimately, the community is fragile because it has been chronically mistreated.
Sweetness as anti-mother
Sweetness makes a symbolic decision not to let her own daughter call her by the name "Mother," instead asking Bride to please call her Sweetness. This represents her projection; she is bitter and judgmental, so she wants to be perceived for what she is not: sweet. Bride doesn't have a warm relationship with her, because of her rejection of Bride, so Sweetness is an anti-mother. Instead of supporting and nourishing her daughter, she clips her wings and humiliates her.
The draught of affection
Sweetness thinks she is helping her daughter to acclimate to the hateful world around, but what she does instead is to create a lonely environment without the support and inflection that could make Bride more strong and resilient. By creating a symbolic draught of approval, one stupid parenting mistake turns into a huge existential crisis; Bride doesn't understand that she is worthy of love because she has never witnessed anyone loving her.
The hopelessness of racism
Because the racism around them is so pernicious and thorough, the black community has become internally fractured, and the people within the community all struggle with hopelessness, because they are so disenfranchised from opportunity that they are basically just waiting for something new that they know will never come. What these parents really wanted was a child so light in color that perhaps they could pass as white so the family could finally have hope for a better future.
