Memphis

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of domestic abuse, racism, racist violence, and child sexual abuse.

Blackness is a motif that pervades the story and describes various elements of Black culture as signs of beauty and pride. Stringfellow vividly describes the various shades of Black skin color to show its diversity.

The narrators describe Black skin as “the color of a lonely street in the middle of the night” (20), “the color of late evening” (74), and “the color of indigo” (102). They compare lighter shades of Black skin to “butter pecan ice cream” (74). Simultaneously, the darkest shades of Black skin color are valued as “proof of dark beauty” (74). The text also describes hair diversity as Joan mentions her “unruly curls” that contrast her mother’s and sister’s more wavy hair. The text criticizes the fact that society values lighter skin more than darker skin when Joan describes the discrimination she encounters due to her Blackness: “Mama never treated me different from Mya because of it, bless God. But she didn’t have to. The neighbors did. My teachers. Girls, Black and white, on base. The people who worked at the grocery store” (74).