“Ah, there it was, revealed at last, the one thing inside Isadora that made me shudder.It was what you heard all your blessed life from black elders and church women in flowered gowns. Don’t be common. Comb your hair. Be a credit to the Race, Strive, like the Creoles for respectability. Class. It made my insides clench.Oh, yes, it mattered to me that Isadora cared, but she saw me as clay. Something she could knead beneath her tiny brown fingers into precisely the sort of creature I – after seeing my brother shackled to subservience- was determined not to become: “a gentleman of color.” The phrase made me hawk, then spit in a corner of my mind. It conjured (for me) the image of an Englishman, round of belly, balding, who’d been lightly brushed with brown watercolor or cinnamon."
Isadola is not impressed with Rutherford’s mannerisms which do not exude honorability and class. However, Rutherford is not fascinated by impression management which compels the black folks to strive to emulate the whites. The elders’ and church women’s insistence on avoiding commonness depicts internalized racism which implies that all black folks should conceal inferiority; they ought to compete with the white folks in terms of class. Isadora holds that she can transform Rutherford’s persona owing to the utilization of metaphoric clay. For Rutherford, behaving gentlemanly is tantamount to embracing a white persona which does not intrigue him.
“Because I love you…you fool!... and I don’t know what to do about it because you don’t love me! I know that! I ‘m not blind, Rutherford…It’s because I’m not…not pretty. No, don’t say it! That is why. Because I’m dark. You’d rather have a beautiful, glamorous, light-skinned wife like the women in theaters and magazines. It’s all what all men want, someone they can show off.”
Isadora’s remarks confirm that she is deficient of self-esteem due to her darkness. For her, being dark is tantamount to being disagreeable. Isadora does not espouse self-love otherwise she would not describe herself as dreadful. Her arguments imply that Rutherford cannot reciprocate her affection due to her looks. Isadora illustrates internalized racism when she insinuates that white women are more glamorous than the dark females. Nonetheless, unaffected love should not be grounded on color and appearances.
“Tis a slaver, Mr. Calhoun, and the cargo awaiting us as Bangalang is forty Allmuseri tribesmen, hides, prime ivory teeth, gold, and bullock, which comes to a total caravan value of nearly nine thousand dollars, of which the officers and I have a profitable share- quite enough to let me retire after this run or finance an expedition I have in mind to Tortuga.”
The inclusion of tribesmen in the cargo list depicts the outright commoditization and trivialization of slaves. The tribesmen are regarded as commodities whose trading would result in Falcon’s enrichment. Moreover, the other items in the list depict the exploitative, and destructive nature of the trade with Falcon is involved in. Falcon is not considerate of the plight of the animals which are slain to accord him the cargo.
“Sit…I don’t like people looking down at me.”
Falcon’s dwarfism makes him uncomfortable; he forbids people from standing in his presence, since for them to do so would remind him of his disability. The order to sit down is a stratagem which would comfort him temporarily that he is not a dwarf. He feels derided and mortified when a tall person “looks down at” him.
