Lula Ann Bridewell likes to go by the name of Bride. It is just one of the ways in which she likes to create her own identity. She is a head-turner, striking, the kind of young girl who stops conversations the moment she walks into the room. Bride is blue-black, with the darkest skin imaginable. She also chooses to dress only in white, which emphasizes her beauty and her dark color even more.
Bride's parents are ashamed of her, because of her color. They are light-skinned, and her darkness embarrasses them, so much so that their marriage becomes strained. Her father completely rejects her, and cannot love a child whose skin is so dark. Bridie's arrival, and her color, destroys the marriage of Sweetness and Louis. Louis despises her and treats her like an alien, never attempting to bond, and furious with Sweetness for producing a blue-black baby like Bride. The marriage dissolves when he leaves. Sweetness blames Bridie for this.
Sweetness is not exactly a loving and doting mother either. She is also ashamed of her blue-black baby. As Bride grows up, she does not want to be associated with her in a familial way, and insists that Bride address her as "Sweetness" rather than "Mama" so that nobody will know that Bridie is her daughter. Bride never experiences love, or caring, or any demonstration of any emotion that comes from a place of love. She is well cared for in a practical sense, and her physical needs are never neglected, but her emotional needs are ignored. Sweetness cannot see anything wrong with arms-length way in which she is raising her daughter. She knows how hard the world can be for blue-black girls like Bride, and in her mind, her lack of affection and tender loving care is for a purpose; she is protecting Bridie from a world that can be very harsh to a child with her darkness of color.
Sweetness is a pragmatist and never explains herself or her way of raising her child. She apologizes to and answers to nobody when it comes to Bride's upbringing. She is aware that outsiders judge her, but is defensive of her view of the world. In Sweetness's world, life is easier for the lighter skinned people. She tells of how the African American community uses color to create social standing or groupings. She says this is how they hold on to their dignity. The lighter you are, the further you can go. In Sweetness's view, she is merely preparing Bride for the disappointment of the things she will never achieve, the groups she will never be accepted into, and the difficulty that will define her life because of the dark blue black tinge of her skin.
