There's an argument to be made (neither here or there on it) about Armand being resistant to having or allowing an open dialogue on race and racial differences between him and Louis, namely on the matter of the lynching, if anything. But I quite enjoy looking at it in the opposite way where it was rather very encouraged in their home to talk about it, and such history. Maybe they don't necessarily touch that particular matter often, as it's sensitive, and conflict prone, and clearly Armand has things to hide about it, but I can really picture Loumand having some thorough discussions on race and colonialism more generally. They have clearly different perspectives, as they have very different backgrounds, but this more informs the others ideas about it and about them than it does take from the thoughts formed about it or them. Unlike Loustat there is a mode of relation they can have on the matter, and I don't see why it would've gone to waste. It seems implied, just by looking at the art they have in their home, and the kinds of books Louis is reading at the time - which seem to inform his artistic tastes - they just do have discussions about how they are forming an understanding of the world, and their racial identities is a part of this. I don't know. Would you purchase 'slave auction' without having a very in depth discussion about it?
When one of you was a slave brought to a foreign land [from India] on a boat, as is shown in this painting, and one of you is a black creole man only a generation removed from the end of chattel slavery? These 'reminders' they place around their home seem like informed decisions, not absent ones.
