In both direct and indirect ways, all the characters are forced to confront the impact of racism and colorism—internalized racism that leads people of color to value people with lighter skin over people with darker skin. Sweetness and Bride are the people most affected by these issues.

Sweetness is the victim of racism in that her opportunities for adequate housing and employment are limited because she is African American. This issue only comes to the fore in her life once she has Bride, whose very dark skin prevents her very fair-skinned mother from passing as white. Although Sweetness understands that she is indeed African American, her ideas about race and skin color show that she has internalized white supremacist ideas to the extent that she feels a sense of revulsion when she looks at her own daughter’s skin. Her resentment of her daughter is further exacerbated because Louis, her husband, rejects Bride and Sweetness because as a light-skinned man, he cannot believe that he is the father of Bride. While Sweetness consistently claims that her cruelty towards her daughter is designed to prepare Bride for the racism she will encounter outside of her home, Bride’s low self-esteem and sense of her own worthlessness indicate that the result of Sweetness's mothering is ongoing damage to her daughter.