Blake Sanders Character Analysis

Blake is Stella’s husband and Kennedy’s father. A wealthy, privileged white man, he meets Stella while working for a marketing firm in a fancy New Orleans office building called the Maison Blanche. He’s Stella’s boss and doesn’t know that she’s Black, since the company only hires white people. Stella keeps her history a secret even when she and Blake become intimate, enjoying the fact that he sees her as a white woman. He eventually asks her to move to Boston with him, and though she knows it will mean leaving Desiree behind, she agrees. In the coming years, she and Blake move from Boston to Los Angeles and have a daughter, Kennedy, whom they raise in a wealthy neighborhood. Blake has no problem spoiling Kennedy, wanting to give her everything he can. After dropping out of college to pursue acting, Kennedy tells her parents that she met a Black girl named Jude, who told her that Stella has an identical twin and that she’s Black. Blake immediately dismisses the story, insisting that Jude must have seen Kennedy’s fancy car and decided to scam her—a good indication of his inherent distrust of Black people. Blake also has traditional ideas about gender roles, as evidenced by his disapproval of Stella’s decision to earn a college degree and start teaching as an adjunct professor. Blake would rather Stella stay at home, even if doing so bores her. And though this aspect of his personality frustrates Stella, she still feels connected to him, regardless of the fact that he knows nothing about her past.