In Banana Bottom by Claude McKay, what are the characters' races and what colors are used to describe their skin? How do race and skin color...

The Jordan Plant family, living in the "hill-and-valley" "mountainous village" of their native Banana Bottom, were descendants of slaves, so the coloring of Jordan and Naomi Plant and their daughter Bita Plant was classified as black or dark brown. Bita's anti-hero, the music obsessed Crazy Bow Adair, was of the Scottish-and-slave line, the line of the Scotchman who liberated his slaves, then took the "blackest" woman of them as his wife. Their descendants are "a...

The Jordan Plant family, living in the "hill-and-valley" "mountainous village" of their native Banana Bottom, were descendants of slaves, so the coloring of Jordan and Naomi Plant and their daughter Bita Plant was classified as black or dark brown. Bita's anti-hero, the music obsessed Crazy Bow Adair, was of the Scottish-and-slave line, the line of the Scotchman who liberated his slaves, then took the "blackest" woman of them as his wife. Their descendants are "a variegated multitude," with skin color ranging from "coffee-brown to cafe-au-lait." Most of Crazy Bows' relatives are classified as dark brown, but Crazy Bow himself was fairer in coloring, resembling the "colour of a ripe banana." 

Belle Black, the first soprano of the Coloured Choristers, being coloured, is a descendant of a European and white family line and classified as "coloured or brown." In Banana Bottom and Jubilee, there were also some thousands of East Indians, Chinese and some who are fair and "of pure European descent," like the "Reverends Malcolm and Priscilla Craig," who took Bita in "like a child of their own."

McKay makes it a point to specify that skin color and descent demarcations were not cut along clearly pronounced lines; there was cross-over of "East Indian and Chinese blood ... mingled in the dark-brown group and ... thousands drawn in from European stock." 

The demarcations were not as real as they seemed .... One could easily pick out individuals by texture of hair, contour of face, shape of nose. But a strong transfusion of black African blood had determined their pigmentation and group. In the coloured groups were many of a light complexion distinguished by Sudanese features and hair, while others of original coulored stock had approximated to and turned white.