Colored Television

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism and includes racist terms for Black and biracial people in direct quotes from the source material. 

“Once you declared you didn’t believe in race, it seemed, you had to declare this rather banal idea everywhere you went—so it became a way of believing in race even as you pretended not to believe in race. It was an ‘out damn spot’ situation—the more you tried to wash your hands of race, the more the bloody spots emerged. Jane knew better.”

In this quote, Jane reflects on how racial identity asserts itself, particularly for Black and brown people, whether the individual chooses to engage with it. She describes this as an “‘out damn spot’ situation.” This is a reference to Lady Macbeth from the Shakespeare play Macbeth. In the play, Lady Macbeth is unraveling and trying to wash her hands of the blood of King Duncan, to whose regicide she contributed. Despite her best efforts, she thinks she still sees blood on her hands. Similarly, try as she might, Jane feels she cannot wash her hands of the way race plays a role in her life.

“Make this brotherman see the truth, that he needs to marry a non-Hispanic quadroon like you if he values his life and longevity. This is bigger than you and your silly heteronormative daydreams, Jane. This is about the universe. And trust me, you don’t want to fuck with the universe because that bitch has no mercy.”

This dialogue from the psychic Wesley Brown points to how Jane must use decisions within the framework the universe has given here. Wesley uses vernacular, charged language to drive his point home. He calls Lenny a “brotherman,” a term for a Black man used by other Black men. He refers to Jane as a “non-Hispanic quadroon.” The “non-Hispanic” label is a nod to the way race is categorized in the United States on official documents currently, whereas “quadroon” is an offensive, antiquated, and racist term for someone who has one Black grandparent.