Sweetness

Sweetness is the first person narrator and main character of the short story. Though Sweetness is a Black woman, she has learned to disassociate from her racial heritage. Her grandmother was light-skinned, and married a white man. Her mother was also light-skinned. Though her mother did not choose to pass for white, the lightness of her complexion granted her some social liberties other Black citizens were not afforded. Because of her familial history, and her desire to hide behind her light coloring, Sweetness is shocked and terrified when she gives birth to a dark-skinned baby girl. Her husband, Louis, is similarly light-skinned, and so Sweetness cannot rationalize her daughter's appearance. Afraid of how the baby will threaten her already tenuous social standing, Sweetness tries smothering Lula Ann shortly after she is born. She takes the blanket away from the baby's face, unable to do so. Then she considers...