How does Libertie's skin color influence her perspective on the world? How does it inform her choices?

Libertie is much darker skinned than her mother, as many people remark to each of them. How does that physical fact influence Libertie's perspective on the world? How does it inform her choices?

Libertie quickly realized that her mother’s light skin color enabled her to “pass” as white in certain situations so that she was able to access resources, people, and things that brown people could not. Libertie could not imagine having those same “privileges” because she was brown. Subconsciously I suspect that because of this reality she felt she could never walk in her mother’s footsteps. Thus she became interested in music and people (the Graces) that others shunned.

Early on Libertie could feel the difference between how white and black people were treated. Her mother's light skin allowed her to participate in a world that would not be nearly as accepting of a dark black woman. Libertie learned early on that her world would be a challenge and that to survive she would need to be guarded, that her set of rules in the world were strict and that if she didn't follow them she would pay the price.

I think she felt there were barriers which influenced her choices, she would never get the education her mother got, she even had to leave the room for some classes in Med school then teach herself from the notes. I think she decided it wasn’t worth it, and without her mothers passion to influence her she became disenchanted with school and angry with the world, understandably. She states how her mothers lighter skin gives her choices to seek lectures and even entertainment that she could never get away with, this had to be so frustrating. Even her own community called her”black girl” or made comments about her darkness.

Being called black girl and trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps who was a light skinned colored woman must have affected Libertee. She witnessed throughout her childhood how her mother was treated with respect. The things her mother accomplished because of her light skin. Yes her mother was also extremely intelligent and motivated but being a colored woman with light skin was also beneficial.

Libertie was well aware of the differences of a dark black person was treated vs a light skinned person. What they could do and not do.

Libertie, early on, saw the privilege of having lighter colored skin and how you could have more opportunities if you were able to "pass" as a white person. I think this affected the way she felt about medical school, as she was a black woman at a time when either of those attributes was not beneficial, much less, both of them.