CHESTER HIMES'S RACIAL PHARMAKON: THE POLITICS OF BLACK ALBINISM IN "THE HEAT'S ON"

Robertson argues that there is a shift away from the freakish and unsympathetic portrayal of this black albinic character to an implied phenotypic subversion of race as a natural phenomenon. The grotesque manner in which Pinky is portrayed signifies a complex and problematic racial subjectivity which intensifies limes' naturalist critique of the black condition while destabilizing blackness as an essentialist category. Pinky's demonic "pink eyes" and other ostensibly ugly facial features position him outside the normative bounds of humanity-physically, semiotically, and ideologically.