Nalo Hopkinson’s use of hybridity in the passage on page fifty four of The Salt Roads decolonizes the reader by challenging attitudes of power and oppression through the theme of race. Hopkinson creates a third space for the reader by merging two different spaces, which alter our perceptions. Using imagery of blackberries, Hopkinson alludes to sexuality and views of black females during this time period. The blackberries can be seen through the lens of exoticism, similarly to views of African descendants in France at the time. Charles and his mother have contradicting views on the fruit and express this through their discourse between each other. Charles’ mother repeatedly refers to blackberries in a negative manner, addressing them as “dreadful” “vulgar” and “spoil[ing]” (Hopkinson, 54). Charles’ mother warns Charles that the blackberries make “such a dreadful dark stain” and by soiling your fingers with them “you’d think that black mark will never come out” (54). Soiling your fingers with them is a sexual metaphor for mixing or crossing relationships with a woman of another race. This view expresses an old-fashioned viewing on hybridity which had much anxiety surrounding the idea. The “black mark” that “will never come out” (54) alludes to a mixed child from a sexual relationship. Charles, who has a black female lover, contradicts and challenges his mothers views by asserting that the blackberries are “sweet” (54) two times during the passage. In the last line of this passage, Charles, referring to soiling his fingers with blackberries, states to his mother, “‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know’” (54). He is trying to hide the truth from his mother, for he knows his lover Jeanne in a very intimate way. The irony in this line lies in the fact that while his mother is not aware of this affair, the reader is. This last line could be seen as a rejection or
