Whites create their own images of blackness and are blind to how different these images are from the reality of black life, which remains figuratively invisible to them behind its veil. "Slave on the Block" embroiders on this visual metaphor. Hughes's ironic narration— the gap between what he says and what he means— is built in order to reveal to his readers just how blind the Carraways are in their perceptions of Luther.
Slave on the Block