“Neither,” said Paul. “They’re just damning our ‘pink niggers’,”
Emma Lou was aghast. Such extraordinary people—saying “nigger” in front of a white man! Didn’t they have any race pride or proper bringing up? Didn’t they have any common sense?
“What’ve they done now?” Ray asked, reaching out to accept the glass Alva was handing him.
“No more than they’ve always done,” Tony Crews answered. “Cora here just felt like being indignant, because she heard of a forthcoming wedding in Brooklyn to which the prospective bride and groom have announced they will not invite any dark people.”
“Seriously now,” Truman began. Ray interrupted him.
“Who in the hell wants to be serious?”
“As I was saying,” Truman continued, “you can’t blame light Negroes for being prejudiced against dark ones. All of you know that white is the symbol of everything pure and good, whether that everything be concrete or abstract. Ivory Soap is advertised as being ninety-nine and some fraction per cent pure, and Ivory Soap is white. Moreover, virtue and virginity are always represented as being clothed in white garments. Then, too, the God we, or rather most Negroes worship is a patriarchal white man, seated on a white throne, in a spotless white Heaven,
