Black Buck

Askaripour emphasizes the novel’s race-related themes through a motif of contrasting the color white with black or brown. In the first half of the book, when Darren is acculturating to the white-dominated corporate mores at Sumwun, Askaripour depicts the whitening of Blackness. The most notable example is the whitening of Darren’s body. When Clyde dumps the bucket of white paint on him, he claims “I though the white would help you fit in better” (68), referring to the fact that Darren is the only Black person at Sumwun. After cleaning off the paint, Darren is given white clothes to change into, an additional symbol of an attempt to replace his Blackness with whiteness. Clyde’s “joke” highlights the racial difference between Darren and his colleagues and their selective attention to race in general. The everyday white supremacy on display in Clyde’s joke is exemplified by the figure of Bonnie Sauren, the voice of the white mainstream media. Bonnie, who describes Darren as a thug, wears a white dress when she interviews Jason and a white blazer and skirt when she interviews Clyde at the racist bake sale, during which she eats a vanilla cookie. When Darren is riding high at Sumwun and living extravagantly, his apartment is entirely decorated in white, and he sleeps with a white woman wearing a white dress despite Wally Cat’s advice that having sex with white women is a bad idea.