Throughout The New Lost Generation, Baldwin uses metaphor of color and lights to emphasis his points on society and how society treats people of color. He uses the colors white and black to identify the parallels between good and bad, as to what society believes is good and bad. The colors he uses show how society does not respects a person of color. Or even in the case of a person not categorizes as "colored." .
Baldwin's best friend was a man of color; he was black, Baldwin describes him as an "Incandescent Negro." Throughout the story Baldwin's "man of color" has to face many different hardships. These obstacles wouldn't be there if he wasn't black. The situation between him and his girlfriend is an example of one of these obstacles. His girlfriend's parents didn't accept his "blackness." They went behind intolerance; they even threatened him to place him in prison. This was possible back then because people often stereotyped black males as being aggressive. They used their prejudices to justify their actions. As the story proceeds we learn that Baldwin's friend committed suicide. He had done so because he was black and wasn't able to face a hostile society. "He would not have died in such a way and certainly not so soon, if he had not been black." He couldn't take anymore racism from society that he had to put an end to his life. As one can see, it must have been difficult for a black individual to live their life in a judging "white" society. .
As a result the black society is secluded in their own communities. Many felt lonely and lost, for example, Baldwin's friend. "The loneliest and most blackly distrusted of men." If a person was black during the 1940's, society would have an automatic different treatment towards the individual. Black individuals would have no rights. They were often stereotyped as "aggressive." There was no freedom of expression anywhere else besides their own community, and sometimes that would be stopped as well.