Black Americans

On one level, development of the play’s stories and themes is defined by the experiences of the five characters who identify, to one degree or another, as black – Kaneisha, Phillip, Gary, Teá, and Patricia. Patricia is described, in both character description and in dialogue, as being very light in her brown skin tone, which – as she says herself, in what is perhaps a potentially controversial statement – puts her closer to whiteness than to blackness. A sixth character, Dustin is described in his character description as being white, but in dialogue claims he is not white. He does so without clarifying or identifying any way in which he is not white – i.e., what his ethno-cultural identity might be. In response to his comments on the subject, Patricia places Dustin even closer to whiteness than she is, essentially dismissing both of their experiences of being non-white. All...