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
About a month before the election, Matthew reveals to Bunny that Helen is pregnant again. He tried to send her to Palm Beach, thinking the travel would make her miscarry, but it didn’t: she’s due in three weeks. Bunny suggests that Matthew try to make a run for it, but Matthew says that Helen is the only woman he’s ever loved, and she spurs him to be more ambitious.
Matthew has been corrupted by racism and his fear of being found out—so much so that he is actively trying to sabotage his wife’s pregnancy in order to keep up his deception. This not only illustrates people’s continued obsession with race, but also how that racism is corrupting and harming innocent children.
Themes
Bunny then suggests that the best thing to do is to siphon away as much money as Matthew can and keep his plane ready. When the baby is born, he should tell Helen everything and offer to take her away with him. If she won’t go, leave, and if she will, everything’s fine. Bunny says that this is the best bet.
Here, Bunny introduces the idea that Matthew being open about his identity is the best course of action, suggesting that neither Matthew’s bloodline nor his skin color truly define him.
Themes
Two days before the election, the situation is unchanged: the Democrats assume they’ll win, and the Republicans are gloomy. Republicans try to dig up a scandal against Givens and Snobbcraft but are dissuaded by setting a bad precedent—there are also politicians in their ranks who are guilty of adultery, drunkenness, and bribes. Several lying-in hospitals have been attacked, and 200 citizens who know nothing about either candidate are arrested for fighting over who is the better man. Police are on alert to suppress disorder, except when they create it.
Again, the book skewers the hypocrisy of leaders in both political parties and the police, as none of them have much integrity. This passage also explores yet again how ignorance breeds violence. People who know nothing about either candidate break out into fights and attack lying-in hospitals, showing how ignorance can easily become dangerous.
Themes
Meanwhile, Arthur Snobbcraft is jovial and confident that he will be elected as Vice President—until Buggerie comes into his office and says that they can’t use any of his research. Showing Snobbcraft a summary of his work, Buggerie says it’s too inclusive—over half of the population has no record of its ancestry beyond five generations. He says that many social leaders—especially Anglo-Saxons—are descendants of colonists who often intermixed with Black slaves.
Buggerie’s research puts a scientific point on the argument that no one can be fully secure in their identity—even people who are certain that they are “pure” white people, as the Anglo-Saxons did, likely have a Black ancestor in their history. But even with this knowledge, Buggerie and Snobbcraft still want to oppress Black people, illustrating how identity cannot be fully defined by bloodline and skin color.
Themes
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Buggerie goes on, explaining that a certain percentage of the resulting mixed-race children then lightened sufficiently to be able to pass for white and merged with the general population. Their descendants now number close to 50 million people. He says that even in Snobbcraft’s own family, which descended from King Alfred, shares a lineage with laboring people, prostitutes, and convicts. One of Snobbcraft’s own maternal ancestors was the offspring of an English serving maid and an enslaved Black slave. At this, Snobbcraft is furious.
At this time, the United States population was about 122 million with 108 million white Americans and 11 million Black Americans. As such, more than one-third of white Americans at the time had Black ancestry. The data reinforces that focusing on bloodline or skin color to determine a person’s identity is confusing and pointless, because few people have a full picture of their racial makeup.
Themes
Buggerie says that he and Givens also have Black ancestry in their lines, as well as Kretin. Snobbcraft asks about Matthew, and Buggerie says that they have no record of the man, and he is likely a Black man who has been whitened. Buggerie emphasizes that they have to destroy all of the material as soon as possible. Snobbcraft agrees to go to headquarters to burn it.
Buggerie continues on, illustrating just how widespread this delusion about “pure” ancestry is. So many of the Democratic leaders (ranging from Givens and Kretin to Matthew) are hypocritical. They rail against people with Black ancestry and support white supremacy, even though their whiteness is now being called into question and people will likely turn against them.
Themes
When Buggerie and Snobbcraft arrive at the vault with the material, however, they find the guards trussed up and gagged—and the vault emptied an hour earlier. Buggerie is actually relieved, saying that the Republicans won’t be able to get anything out of the cards in time to affect the election, and he has the only summary—the one he showed to Snobbcraft in his office. Buggerie suddenly realizes that he left the summary in the office, and when they return, they find a note left for them from the “G.O.P.,” thanking them for leaving the report.
Ironically, Buggerie’s research becomes his own downfall. Whereas he thought that he would be able to manipulate ignorant people by showing them how many people have Black ancestry, instead his own ignorance about his identity and this widespread misconception that white people don’t have any Black ancestry will likely create intense political and social upheaval in the U.S. The chapter’s final ominous note also suggests that the findings may have horrific ramifications for Buggerie himself.
Themes
