Birdie Lee: The narrator of the novel. At the beginning of the novel she is 8 years old. Her birth certificate states her name as Baby Lee.“My father wanted to call me Patrice, as in Lumumba, the Congolese liberator; my mother wanted to name me Jesse, after her great-grandmother, a white suffragette. Cole just called me Birdie—she had wanted a parakeet for her birthday and instead got me.” Birdie is also called Le Chic by the Nkrumah Brown Sugar clique; and Pocahontas or Poco by Nicholas Marsh. Throughout the novel, Birdie is incapable of constructing her own racial identity unless someone assigns it to her. When Sandy forces Birdie to adopt a Jewish identity, she experiences the complete erase of her Black identity.
Jesse (Jess) Goldman: The fake Jewish identity Birdie’s mother gives her so they can settle in New Hampshire when she is 12 years old.
Colette (Cole) Lee: Birdie’s older sister. Colette is named after her mother's favorite author. For Birdie, Cole is the mirror in which she can see her blackness.
Sandy Lodge Lee: Birdie and Cole’s mother. Sandy is from an upper crust white Boston family whose lineage traces back to Cotton Mather. Sandy's ability to raise her two Black daughters is questioned in the novel; the author criticizes Sandy's inability to attend to Cole's blackness by failing to appropriately style her hair andintroduce her to lotion to treat her ashiness. Even though Sandy tries to deny a part of her identity, the White privilege she possess cannot be concealed in the presence of her two daughters. While a Black woman is born into her culture, Sandy is forced to learn how to better respond to her Black daughter's needs. Sandy's efforts to not attune to her Whiteness, ultimately serve to make her White privilege even more visible.
Sheila Goldman: The fake identity Sandy uses when she and Birdie settle in New Hampshire
Deck Lee: Birdie and Cole’s father. Deck is a black intellectual who teaches and writes on race theory.
Dot Lee: Deck’s older sister and Birdie’s favorite relative.
Taj: Dot’s 4-year-old daughter. Birdie meets her when she runs away to Boston to try to find her father and her sister.
Carmen : A girlfriend of Deck’s after he divorces Sandy.
Penelope Lodge: Birdie’s white grandmother; Sandy’s mother.
Ronnie Parkman: A good friend of Deck’s in the 1970s, a documentarian.
Redbone: A red haired multiracial man who infiltrates Sandy’s group of militant friends. Deck is suspicious of Redbone and doesn’t trust him.
Linda and Jane: Some of Sandy’s militant friends.
Birdie’s Nkrumah friends: (The Brown Sugars clique) Maria Miller, Cherise, Cathy, Carol and Diana (the twins) ; Ali Parkman.
Walter and Libby Marsh: the couple that rents the cottage to Sandy/Sheila in New Hampshire.
Nicholas Marsh: Walter and Libby’s son. A few years older than Birdie/Jesse, Nicholas goes to boarding school.
Mr. Pleasure: a mare that the Marsh’s own and Birdie/Jesse has permission to ride.
Jim: a man Sandy/Sheila meets in New Hampshire and forms a relationship with.
Mona: Birdie/Jesse’s best friend at school in New Hampshire
Dennis: Mona’s lecherous big brother.
Samantha Taper: an adopted child with white parents. She is a darker skinned multiracial student at the New Hampshire school Birdie/Jesse attends.
Nora: Samantha’s best friend, a slightly built math genius who is white.
Stuart: a black student at the New Hampshire school, recruited for the football team.
Corvette: a black transsexual Birdie meets in Boston when she runs away from home.
You'll need to sign up to view the entire study guide.
