Betty Before X

“Baby, do you know how beautiful you are?”

Mrs. Malloy usually greets Betty by asking if she knows how beautiful she is. It is as if she knows that Betty doesn’t hear this enough and that she doesn’t yet understand that she is beautiful. Over the course of the novel, Mrs. Malloy’s influence and admiration allow Betty to begin seeing herself as Mrs. Malloy sees her.

“Is Your Skin Dark, Dreadful, and Unattractive? So was mine.”

This quote is from an advertisement in the Ebony magazine that Betty looks at with Suesetta and Phyllis. The woman in the “before” photograph has a complexion similar to Betty. The “after” photograph looks more like Phyllis and Suesetta. The ad frames skin like Betty’s as something dreadful that has to be altered or repaired, rather than celebrated and accepted.

“To be able to design something with your mind and your hands is a powerful skill to have. It’s your own creation.”

Mrs. Collins explains one of the benefits of learning to sew. The concept immediately resonates with Betty, even though she doesn’t yet know if she has any aptitude for sewing. The theme of creating something from nothing, of being able to produce something with one’s own will and skill, is invaluable for reform and progress.

“Where do uncried tears go?”

Betty watches Ollie Mae fight back tears after she tears up the newspaper whose front page featured the Detroit Race Riots. Betty’s question is innocent but more profound than she knew as a child. Uncried tears symbolize a building sadness and resentment that eventually becomes rage and protest.

“I am listening. No questions tonight. Just listening and waiting and hoping that if I keep quiet for once, maybe God will speak to me.”

Betty’s mind is always so busy, and she questions so relentlessly that she wonders if she is never still enough for God to get a chance to talk to her. She begins incorporating nights of silence into her routine in order to make her relationship with God more of a give and take.

“I wish I could hate her.”

After Ollie Mae tells Mrs. Malloy that she can keep Betty, Betty’s feelings are chaotic. She doesn’t understand why she feels so sad, since her mother hasn’t treated her well. But she doesn’t understand why she can’t hate her, either. Her life would be simpler if she could hate Ollie Mae, because then she would feel less compelled to find ways to mend their relationship. If she could hate her, they could be enemies, or ignore each other, but neither of those options is possible for either of them.

“There are a lot of reasons for you to be upset and confused. But sweetheart, the easy thing to do is to hold on to disappointment and pain. The hard thing to do is to let it go and forgive.”

Mrs. Malloy knows that hating Ollie Mae and clinging to her emotional pain would make Betty’s situation more difficult. Mrs. Malloy communicates that forgiveness is challenging but will serve Betty in the long-term. She will have so many reasons for resentment as part of the Civil Rights Movement. Thoughtfully navigating her relationship and past with Ollie Mae will help her develop her insight and effectiveness as an activist.

“Love is always a big deal.”

Kay tells Betty that she is adopted. Even though her parents are not her biological parents, she knows they love her the way every child should be loved. Anything that is motivated by love is worthwhile, even if it doesn’t produce immediate results. Kay and Betty both have complicated relationships with parental love, but they both benefit from it.

“Love is family being who you choose and who chooses you.”

Betty thinks about all the different forms of love while she is counting her blessings. The idea that the concept of family can apply to those who are not biologically related is one of her most important breakthroughs. Mrs. Malloy chose Betty, and Betty eventually chooses to reach out to Ollie Mae. Ollie Mae chooses, as an act of love, to wear the skirt and dress that Betty makes for her.

“How in the world is Truman going to say he upholds the Constitution when he won’t pass legislation to end lynching?”

One of the women at the Housewives’ League tea points out a massive contradiction between the words of America’s president and the reality of legislation that refuses to protect people of color. The Constitution supposedly offers equal protection to every citizen. It is illogical and impossible to uphold the Constitution without criminalizing and punishing lynchings to the furthest extent of the law.

“I am thankful for the look in Suesetta’s eyes when she calls me her best friend, how I know she means it when she says it again and again: ‘forever.’”

It unsettles Betty when Phyllis says they can’t be friends anymore. Betty has experienced more than her share of abandonment. Thankfully, there is no similar friction or doubt with Suesetta, who promises her that they will always be friends. Betty has dealt with enough abandonment in her life that she is unable to assume that even the people who claim to love her will stay.

“What I like most about Mrs. Peck is her resilience. I know what it’s like to have someone you love more than anything in the world die and go to heaven. I know that emptiness hurts so much, but Mrs. Peck keeps her joy. She teaches us not to wallow in any misery, but to grow from it.”

Betty speaks at Mrs. Peck’s appreciation ceremony. Betty speaks vulnerably about the feeling of loss, and she reveals that she knows the pain of loss that can easily strip the beauty and joy from life. Mrs. Peck’s example proves to Betty that it’s possible to lose the most important person and still treat life as a gift. She resolves to grow from her pain like Mrs. Peck.

“Blessings, blessings. So many I lose count.”

When Mrs. Malloy encourages Betty to recount her blessings as part of her New Year’s Resolutions, Betty realizes that there are even more blessings than she thought. Mrs. Malloy helps her to cultivate gratitude as a habit, which slowly changes her perspective. This contrasts with Betty’s later difficulties in accepting that sometimes struggling against seemingly impossible challenges is still worth it. Even the fight for equal rights, while slow and arduous and, to Betty, seemingly unproductive, has a silver lining.

“When you feel nervous, remember what Mrs. Peck says: it’s okay to be afraid if you know you’re doing the right thing—just push right through your fears.”

Betty responds to Suesetta when she expresses anxiety about the upcoming in-person boycott at Jerry’s Market. Betty is confident because of the positivity and energy at the Housewives’ League meetings and the success of Mrs. Peck’s ceremony. Even though she remembers the lynched bodies hanging from the tree, she hasn’t yet been confronted with the actual process—and failures and dangers—of activism. She assumes that their efforts will be successful because she can’t imagine people resisting the rationality and positivity of their efforts, let alone condemning them for their insistence on equality.

“I think God made us the way He wanted us to be. I think maybe we make Him sad when we don’t like how He made us, like we’re telling Him that what He created was wrong.”

Betty responds to Suesetta when she asks Betty if she has ever thought about skin bleaching. Betty thinks about all the times that Mrs. Malloy and her mother have asked her if she knows how beautiful she is. She is growing more comfortable with herself, and this is her most assertive statement of self-worth yet.

“Maybe it’s like Pastor Dames says—we have to keep sowing love and goodness in the world even when the world hates us. Remember? We reap what we sow.”

Kay encourages Betty to be patient. She believes that their actions will eventually achieve the results they want, even if it doesn’t happen in their lifetimes. Meanwhile, Kay knows that sowing anger and discord, even though they would be justified, would give the world a convenient excuse to resist change and equality. Betty learns that she can only control her reactions to events. She wants to react like Kay and Mrs. Malloy—with grace and determination, never retreating into despair and rage.

“But just because you have a bad season doesn’t mean you stop planting.”

Kay tells Betty how difficult it was, and how much patience and preparation it took, to work their farm in the South. Even when they do everything right, a drought could ruin their efforts. They aren’t allowed to stop, however, because that would guarantee that nothing would come of their efforts.

“This is me watering the soil, this is me waiting for the harvest.”

Despite her worries about Ollie Mae’s feeling for her, Betty leaves her birthday gift on her porch. Based on what she has seen in the story, she knows that this effort might not guarantee success. However, she now believes that there is no reason to hope for a harvest without planting seeds and watering the soil. She is giving herself and Ollie Mae a chance to grow towards something new together.

“She goes on to talk about the goodness of the Lord. I look at her and it takes me a moment or two to really believe what I am seeing, because at first it looks like she is wearing something I’ve seen before, but under that familiar blazer is the blouse I made her. She’s wearing the skirt, too. And they’re both a perfect fit.”

When Ollie Mae takes the microphone at church, Betty is surprised to hear her give thanks. However, she is even more surprised when she sees that Ollie Mae is wearing the gifts that Betty made for her. They coincide with Ollie Mae’s need to express gratitude publicly before the congregation. Even though Ollie Mae’s gesture—wearing the blouse and skirt—is slightly hidden beneath her blazer, Betty knows that Ollie Mae means for her to see them.

“I could count all the times I had a snowball fight with Suesetta and Bernice, all the times I tried to sew a dress and failed, then tried again and made it just right.”

One night while counting her blessings, Betty has an insight into the larger implications of her sewing. She cared about the finished project of the dress she had in her mind each time she began a sewing project. Each failure made her more determined to get it right, rather than frustrating her to the point of abandoning the project. That persistence is what the Civil Rights Movement requires of its allies and activists, and it would serve her well throughout her life.

“Leon Mosley. He is one year older than me and gone. I think of all the colored people’s lives that were here one minute, gone the next. The ones I saw hanging from trees when I was just a little girl. My eyes are watering. I look at Mother, see tears welling in her eyes, too. And the burning has nothing to do with the bleach.”

After Leon Mosley’s death, Betty associates him with the lynched bodies she saw hanging from the magnolia tree. Leon’s death affects her more acutely because he is so close to her age. She knows how short his life was, and his death reminds her that, as long as racism persists, their lives are more fragile than they should be. Mrs. Malloy’s tears show Betty that she is not always stoic, even though she will try find a silver lining in this tragedy.

“I pray for peace, for Leon Mosley’s family. I pray that one day I won’t ever have to pray these kinds of prayers.”

After Leon Mosley’s death, Betty imagines a future in which she doesn’t have to pray for comfort in the aftermath of racist violence. Betty and the other activists want to exist in peace without fearing for their lives while being subjected to constant injustice that is supported by the American legal system. Betty wants to spend her time in prayer and in meditative gratitude, not in asking for comfort for another mourning family.

“After Billy Eckstine finishes his last song, the applause continues like a mighty wind rustling through a forest of trees. And these trees have deep roots, so grounded that even though they bend, they don’t break. So many of us bearing fruit, so many of us just planted.”

Kay’s metaphor of the seeds and the farm resonates strongly with Betty at the Eckstine event. Betty sees potential growth in each member of the crowd. Together, they will become an unstoppable force, even though progress will sometimes be as slow as the growing of a seed. Betty now understands the need for patience, because now she realizes that the coming change is inevitable, no matter how long it takes.