Gold in the Mine

At one point, Black pretends that he's relieved White isn't Jewish. When White asks Black if he has something against Jews, Black explains he's joking. But then he says:

"The whole point of where this is goin—which you wanted to know—is that they aint no jews. Aint no whites. Aint no n*****s. People of color. Aint none of that. At the deep bottom of the mine where the gold is at there aint none of that. There's just the pure ore. That forever thing. That you dont think is there." (95)

Have you read up on everlasting life elsewhere in this section yet? Because you might want to. What Black is talking about here connects to that symbol, too: Underneath it all, there's a shared humanity that can be tapped into. When White asks Black if this is the same thing as Jesus, he replies:

"I would say that the thing we are talkin about is Jesus, but it is Jesus understood as that gold at the bottom of the mine. He couldnt come down here to take the form of a man if that form wasnt done shaped to accommodate him. And if I said that there aint no way for Jesus to be ever man without ever man bein Jesus then I believe that might be a pretty big heresy. But that's all right." (95)

In other words, to Black, Jesus is this sort of collective humanity. There's no Christ without people, and since this means Jesus is all people, then all people are Jesus, too. So, the "forever thing" (95), then, is something divine in humans, a soul that redeems life and makes it purposeful. But White, to the contrary, doesn't believe in the gold hidden at the bottom of the sinful, dark, and dusty recesses of human beings. He believes in "the primacy of the intellect," the central importance of reason—he's all head, and no heart.