Betty Before X

Content Warning: This section discusses anti-Black racism. It depicts scenes of racial discrimination and racist violence.

“Her eyes were always apologizing, like she was telling me she loved me but in a different kind of way. Like how you love a mistake that ends up not being so bad after all. Like how you love the rain because even though it can make a mess of things, it still makes rainbows rise and flowers grow.”

Betty looks at a picture of their family that doesn’t include her. She describes Ollie Mae’s typical demeanor in this quote. Ollie Mae makes mistakes, and she can be cruel, but she is always torn between her love for Betty and the harsh memories that Betty invokes. Neither of them knows best how to describe their feelings for the other. By the end of the novel, Ollie Mae has found a better way to carry herself, being productive like the rain at its best.

“Baby, do you know how beautiful you are?”

Mrs. Malloy usually greets Betty by asking if she knows how beautiful she is. It is as if she knows that Betty doesn’t hear this enough and that she doesn’t yet understand that she is beautiful. Over the course of the novel, Mrs. Malloy’s influence and admiration allow Betty to begin seeing herself as Mrs. Malloy sees her.

“Is Your Skin Dark, Dreadful, and Unattractive? So was mine.”

This quote is from an advertisement in the Ebony magazine that Betty looks at with Suesetta and Phyllis. The woman in the “before” photograph has a complexion similar to Betty. The “after” photograph looks more like Phyllis and Suesetta. The ad frames skin like Betty’s as something dreadful that has to be altered or repaired, rather than celebrated and accepted.