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Pecola’s brother, Sammy, appears in the novel briefly to demonstrate the different ways valuing whiteness affects Black boyhood and girlhood. As the novel introduces the Breedlove family, it explains how each member has accepted the racist dictate that their dark skin and ethnic features make them ugly. It describes Sammy as using his ugliness as “a weapon to cause others pain.” This sentence implies that Sammy leans into the ugly stereotypes of Black men, particularly those with darker skin, as dangerous and violent. Although these stereotypes will not make him welcomed or loved, they can create power for him by making him feared. We see him unleash this meanness during bouts of domestic violence between Cholly and Mrs. Breedlove. Sammy joins Mrs. Breedlove in attacking Cholly, shouting, “Kill him,” indicating a desire for violence which shocks even Mrs. Breedlove. His embrace of these ugly expectations also gives him more freedom than Pecola to run away. Pecola gains no power from her imagined ugliness, only shame and fear because in stories girls are meant to be pretty. Sammy, on the other hand, can use fear to create space for himself in the world, and thus is able to escape the Breedlove household for most of the novel.
