Down These Mean Streets

One of the deepest struggles of Piri’s life is his struggle with conceptions of what race he is, both his own conceptions as well as the conceptions of others. Speaking broadly, Piri is not quite black, yet not quite white, either. The child of a light-complexioned mother and a dark-complexioned father, he is on the threshold between white and black. He feels as though he has to make a choice, even though, at the same time, he feels both black and white. Speaking with Brew, Piri says “I still can’t help feeling both paddy and Negro. The weight feels even on both sides even if both sides wanna feel uneven. Goddammit, I wish I could be like one of those lizards that change colors. When I’d be with Negroes, I’d be a stone Negro, and with paddies, I’d be stone paddy” (180).

The only way Piri can conceive of himself as integrated within society is to imagine himself as another being altogether: a chameleon. Piri wants to be whole, to be completely something: “Jesus, if I’m a Negro, I gotta feel it all over. I don’t have the ‘for sure’ feeling yet” (128). But when it comes to race, he simply cannot be wholly black or wholly white.