The full story “The hands of the Black” by Bernardo Honwana takes only a couple of minutes to

read, but it needs much more time to think it over. The story starts from the simple question a

schoolboy he asks just out of curiosity, but the answers turn it to something much more

complicated. The comprehension of the questions the adults ask in return and the answers they

give can say a lot about the world of racial discrimination.

The question about the hands of the black people is firstly raised by the narrator’s schoolteacher

and then the most offensive explanation possible is given to the class. According to the teacher,

the black people didn’t evolved as fast as the white ones, so the palms without tan is a memory

about the times when they were walking on their four like monkeys.

The first disturbing thing in the story is that the narrator (who is probably Bernardo Honwana

himself) is the only one who disagrees with this explanation and starts to seek another answers

from random people. But still, none of them satisfies him, because – this is the second thing that

makes us worry – people claim that black people as a race have some special traits that

distinguish them from whites, that they have different personalities.

The priest – the next man the narrator asks and the one who has the most authority among the

neighboring adults – gives much prettier explanation, but it still looks fake. He says that God left

the hands of the black people light-colored because they hold them together during the prayer so

often that the skin has no time to become tanned.

This version, on the contrary, makes black people better than whites and more obedient to God –

but by intuition or logic the narrator understands that it isn’t true either. So he continues his quest

for answers, trying to comprehend why adults have such different versions of them.

The other answers were mostly bitter or offensive again. For example, Dona Dores said to the boy

that though the black people are destined to be slaves, their hands were deliberately made white

by God, so that they won’t soil anything they bring to their masters. Another version was that the

palms were bleached during the constant picking of white cotton or doing the laundry from day to

day. Almost everyone the narrator asks associates the black color of the skin with dirt that is either

disgusting and has to be rid of or plainly the sign of the inferiority.

Some of the adult men play a stupid prank on the boy, telling him the outright silly story they came

up with on the spot. One of them told the narrator that the whites were created first and then they

made black people by themselves from clay and second-hand forms previously used by them. But

due to the lack of space and their neglection, the whites overbaked the clay and it became ashes.

Their palms were still white because all the black people had to hold on something just not to fall to

the fire. While the narrator tries to comprehend such an unusual and disturbing story, the men

around burst into laughing, persuading him that the full story is a lie from the first to the last word

and they don’t know the right answer to such a ridiculous question. So, not only they treat black

people as laughingstocks, they also mock the average and innocent child curiosity.

More tamed but still fantastic version comes from another neighbor of the narrator: God created all

the people and at first they all were black because of ash and dust. He showed them the big lake

and ordered them to wash themselves before going to Earth to live there. But the first part of the

people was created before the dawn and the water was freezingly cold in the night.

So they decided just to wash their hands and feet. It was too dark for them to see that they are

covered in dirt from heads to toes, so they went as they were and became black people. This story
contains more equality in it, but again, the black skin color is associated with being dirty, lazy or

dim-witted, it is a flaw and a drawback.

The only story that satisfies the narrator is the story of his mother. Several times we, as readers,

see that Bernardo Honwana draws our attention to the fact the woman is crying while telling her

story. She starts from the words that persuade the boy more than everything else: “God made

blacks because they had to be”. This single phrase makes everything right: the very existence of

the black people is the natural and legitimate thing. They are not meant to be the instruments, they

don’t exist on purpose, they just are, because God wanted the Earth to be populated with people of

different skin colors.

But then the narrator’s mother adds a very bitter thing to the whole story: later God regretted that

he created blacks, because the whites made their life miserable, they enslaved the blacks, mocked

them and discriminated them. God even thought about making everyone white, but he couldn’t

violate the choice of those who wanted to stay black.

So, to remind that inside all the people are equal and the real value of a person is determined not

with their skin color but with the deeds they do with their hands, God made the hands of the black

people lighter than the rest of their skin. The story ends with the words of the narrator that he has

never seen someone crying so much as his mother, without being hurt.

We can conclude that the story of the discrimination of the black people is something very personal

for the narrator’s mother, though we learn that she is clearly a white woman. Still she cries and

emphasises several times that the black people just need to exist because God wants it. The

woman chooses the exactly right words to give to her son the most right, though biologically

incorrect answer.

The boy doesn’t reveal for himself why the skin on the palms of the dark-skinned people contains

less melanin than the rest of their body, but instead he receives a much more powerful epiphany:

all the previous versions were wrong, because the black people aren’t different from the white

ones. They can be good or bad, kind or mean, bright or dim, just as anyone else, because they are

just people who have darker skin.

In a few sentences the narrator’s mother showed him all the oppression the black people came

through, so severe that even God, almighty and omniscient, regretted His decision to create them

for such suffering. She also dismisses the association of black skin with dirt, saying that even God

respects the right of the person to be black. No wonder that the previous versions told to her by her

son made the poor woman cry. The adult and reasonable people (even the teacher and the priest)

who are the authorities for the kids, deliberately or ignorantly, spread the racist views, raising the

new generation of racism discrimination supporters.

Let me remind you that the narrator was the only one from the whole class who raised the

question. The other kids took it as granted and the other adults (who may be fathers of those very

kids) support the views that utterly dehumanize black people, portraying them as inferior beings

marked by God (or evolution) to be slaves and servant to the superior whites.

The understanding of the scale of the problem can be shocking for everyone. The brave woman

does what she has to do and what she can do. She can’t fix the whole world, but she can be a

good mother to her child and give him the answer that will help him to stand for the equality of all

the people in the future. Her story is beautiful and logical enough to be spread among the other
kids and maybe some of them will reconsider their opinion also.

We see the powerlessness of a single mother who stands against almost all the town, but also we

see hope, because the reaction of her child is the best reward we, as readers, can be given. He

believes her with all his heart and he finds that her values resonate with his own, with the sense of

right that is innate for everyone, that makes us human, disregarding the color our hands are.