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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Black No More, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Oppression
Race, Class, and Power
Ignorance
Identity and Deception
Leadership and Hypocrisy
Summary
Analysis
The next day, Matthew and Bunny sit in their hotel room sipping cocktails, worried about Helen’s pregnancy. Matthew wonders how it will all come out. He thinks about all that he’s done: he was once a Black insurance agent, and now he’s a white millionaire with unlimited power and a beautiful wife. Soon, he might return to oblivion. Bunny tells Matthew that the plane is ready to take off whenever he needs it, and he assures Matthew that he would go with the man.
Matthew’s reflection on his transformation not only reinforces how mutable his identity is, but it also illuminates the oppression that he faced as a Black man. Because people are so fixated on race and so intent on perpetuating oppression that Matthew has become wildly successful by playing on people’s ignorance and fear. He will only return to the “oblivion” of being a Black insurance agent if people find out about his former identity, despite the fact that he won’t have changed as a person at all.
Themes
Suddenly, the phone rings, and Matthew learns that Helen has given birth—it’s a boy. He and Bunny rush over to Matthew’s home and Matthew waits outside Helen’s bedroom for the doctor. The physician emerges, and he gravely tells Matthew that his son is very, very dark, and that he or Helen must have Black ancestry. The physician offers to get rid of the baby for Matthew, which Matthew briefly considers. But he wants children and thinks that it’s probably a bad idea to keep murdering them. In his head, Matthew contemplates admitting the truth and running away with Helen and his son, but he also considers his wealth, power, and prestige.
Matthew’s concern about racism and maintaining his own identity corrupts innocence: he actually considers murdering his newborn son just to keep up the ruse about his identity. This is a testament to how afraid he is to return to the kind of discrimination he faced, and to give up his newfound wealth if people find out about his identity.
Themes
In a few short seconds, Matthew reviews the past three years: New Year’s Eve at the Honky Tonk Club, the first glimpse of Helen, becoming white, escaping discrimination, organizing the Knights of Nordica, the stream of successes. Shaking Matthew from his thoughts, the butler bursts into the room with a newspaper from Bunny. The headline reads, “Democratic Leaders Proved of Negro Descent” and lists the leaders, including Givens, Snobbcraft, Buggerie, and Kretin, but it doesn’t list Matthew. Bunny then comes into the room.
Again, this short reverie illustrates how much progress Matthew has been able to make in his life simply by becoming white, even though he knows there is no discernable difference between the races. However, because of Americans’ fixation on race, he has had to hide his identity desperately while taking advantage of that racism in the Knights of Nordica. The newspaper also illustrates to him that he is not the only one engaged in deception and whose identity is unstable in the public eye.
Themes
Reading the article lifts a weight off of Matthew’s shoulders, and just at that moment, Givens arrives with a newspaper in hand and dashes into Helen’s bedroom. Matthew and Bunny follow him just in time to see Helen’s horrified reaction to the headline as she faints. As the nurses try to revive Helen, Givens begs Matthew to get them out of this problem. He says that people nearly mobbed him as he left his office. Matthew soothes Givens and Helen, saying he’ll stick by them. He then asks Bunny to get the cars ready so they can go to the airport.
Givens and Helen are shocked by their Black ancestry and are desperate for Matthew to accept them, which shows how much of a frenzy Buggerie’s research has caused. Again, it illustrates how racism is still embedded in the country, as anyone who has any association with Black ancestry is automatically belittled in the public eye.
Themes
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In that moment, Helen regains consciousness, and she apologizes profusely to Matthew, illogically attributing the baby’s skin color to her own hidden ancestry. She begs him to forgive her for humiliating him and tells him that she loves him. He says soothingly that she hasn’t disgraced him, and he reveals that he’s the one responsible for the baby’s skin color, feeling a great load lifting off of him. Helen is relieved, and she loves him more than ever. She thinks that they have all that they need, and that all the problems with race and color are foolish.
Helen is horrified to learn that she has Black ancestry and illogically believes that this is the reason for the baby’s skin color, which illustrates just how destabilizing Buggerie’s research has become. But in learning about Matthew’s true heritage and realizing that race is simply a “foolish” construction, she recognizes that no one can be truly secure in their identity. Therefore, fixating on differences in skin color or ancestry is useless.
Themes
Givens says, “I guess we’re all niggers now,” which the doctor corrects as “Negroes” before explaining that he, too, has Black ancestry—only his isn’t so distant. The doctor says he hopes the Republicans win, and Bunny says it’s almost certain—it’s likely no one will be able to find Givens or Snobbcraft soon.
Givens’s use of the slur, even as he is affirming that he is like a Black person now, illustrates a key point. Givens’s identity hasn’t changed—he’s still racist despite his newly discovered heritage—but it shows how arbitrary and ultimately deceptive a person’s skin color and bloodline can be.
Themes
Mr. Givens, Mrs. Givens, Matthew, Helen, Bunny, and Matthew Jr. all speed away in Matthew’s plane to Mexico. Givens is depressed, having really believed all that he preached about white supremacy and race purity. When they arrive in Mexico City, they receive a telegram informing them that Senator Kretin has been lynched and Snobbcraft and Buggerie have fled as well. Goosie and Gump have been almost unanimously reelected, and the government has declared martial law.
The fact that Kretin was lynched because of his newly discovered identity illustrates how ignorance can foster violence in a way that affects even those trying to manipulate other people’s ignorance. As a member of the Democratic party, Kretin helped stoke racial oppression and white supremacist ideology, and now he pays the price for it because the ignorant masses followed his ideology unthinkingly.
Themes
Matthew asks who the woman is who sent it, and Bunny says that she’s the last Black woman in the country—she’s a race patriot. Givens comments that it looks like life will be better for them in Mexico than in Georgia.
As Matthew escapes with his family, the book cynically suggests that the only way to truly cope with racism in the United States is to leave it entirely.
Themes
