Black and White

The battle between black and white is legendary in The PriVILEged whether a battle between an eighty year-old black psychologist and his very white protege or the battle between the black and white pieces on the chessboard.

I immediately fell in love with Mr Wet Sores when he says to Billie,"T-t-tell you wh-what, n-niggar. Let's play. And since you a blackie, you g-go second!" But that wouldn't be enough for Sores to create weakness in Billie or boost Matty's ego. Sores just had to add that extra verbal dagger. "I'm the wh-white boy and wh-white g-goes first!"

A theme emerged in The PriVILEged that I hadn't counted on and that was one of self-destruction.  You'll see Matty, both on and off the chessboard, transform into evil, much like Obi-Wan1 and Anakin, with the same question of who will surface as the hero of the story. Billie wants nothing more than to see Matty's multiples integrate so Matty can somehow resume a normal life, whatever normal might be, but there is just no stopping Matty from becoming a vindictive messiah destined for a path of revenge.

It seemed no matter how old or how wise Matty became, it was apparent that I would be left with no choice in the end but to show that it simply wasn't enough for him to have killed the priests. Instead, he would have to die with them.