In Keene’s Counternarratives, “the white girl” is used repeatedly to mark Eugénie, while “the blacks” are solely used in the grand historical narrative (“the blacks did triumph” p93), except for when near the end, Eugénie calls Carmel “you black witch”. The moments of calling Eugénie “white girl” stabs the narrative back into the contemporary USA for me. It’s a phrase circulated among my group of friends, each calling entail a bit of a callout, if not at the person, against the racialized institutions.

Perhaps because of the constant use of the white girl, despite the pseudoacademic air of much of the writing, it feels likes Carmel is somehow internally living in our bettered, more “enlightened” age. And hence, when at the very end of the story, where Carmel locks Eugénie in a burning house, in Eugénie’s desperate attempt to coerce and insult, she drops “you black witch”; the contrast painfully reminds us of the unquestioned sharpness with which race is used to mutilate.