As was pointed out elsewhere, why in the world would an oppressed group be given a name like "pearls", a semi-precious item used in jewellery, while the oppressing group gives itself the name "coals", which has no connotations of beauty or value? It'd make a lot more sense if the people of African descent were called "ebonies" and people of European descent called "mushrooms". Plus, any book titled Save the Mushrooms would have a lot of people checking it out just to find out what it the world it was about.