why are black holes not black

Black holes are not black because even though they pull in light, some light can still escape. Black holes have a huge amount of gravity that can pull in light from all around it. As light gets close to the black hole it gets bent around the black hole and some of that light escapes from the other side. This means some of the light that was pulled in can be seen from far away so they appear to be a dark red color instead of black.