Racism And Discrimination, By Zora Neale Hurston

Racism is a widely discussed topic, and everyone agrees that it is something that only causes harm. People with racist views can view others from other groups as people who are lesser than them and might use physically actions to show their dislike. In response to that, more and more people are having their own ideas of how to identify and end racism. For example, Kwame Anthony Appiah who brought out the idea of extrinsic racism, the perspective of utilitarianism, and the Kantian ethic are views that show why racism is wrong and how it can be ended.

Hurston, on the other hand, lived in a town where only blacks lived until she was thirteen years old. Therefore, she only knew the “black” self. There was no second identity to contend with. She states that “white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there.”2 She does not feel anger when she is discriminated against. She only wonders how anyone can not want to be in her company. She “has no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored” (Hurston 1712).

“Racism still occupies the throne of our nation,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pronounced just before his assassination. Almost fifty years later, we are still faced with the same unchanged threat that makes the words of Dr. King true. As individuals, communities, and a proud nation we have made an everlasting fingerprint for the children of our future, yet we lack the strength of acknowledgment to alter the course of racial discrimination and conquer prejudice. Has the formation of structural discrimination rooted itself too deeply into our subconscious that hope for rehabilitation seems unattainable? As a nation, we voted a man with a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya as the first multiracial President of the United States. Racism has not been eradicated because of the racial background of President Barrack Obama and we have not accomplished victory because of his African decent because prejudice has been too deeply fixed within our society. Social circumstance and the insinuation of race continue to change over time, precisely because race has become a social construct that serves political ends. The prior and present leaders of our nation organize, generate, and endorse the laws and public policy that ensure racism continues to maintain itself against people of color. Our historically racist foundation, the rising effects of structural discrimination, and the view of modernized racism all actively participate in shaping our structural

Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, characters face many acts of racial discrimination growing up while living in the South during the 1930’s. In the novel Hurston shows how a racial caste system is formed. As the story progresses, the reader is able to see how the caste system affects different characters in different ways. This shows that even if people do not experience oppression in the same way as another, it doesn’t mean that they don’t bare the same weight, but might react to the weight differently.

Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God further demonstrates the author’s perspective of colored women. The main

The story “There Eyes Were Watching God”, by Zora Neale Hurston, is a story that takes place in Florida in the early 1900s. The book is about the struggle of a woman to find true love in life. This woman is named Jane, she is a mixed race of both black and white, she is the protagonist of the story. Her goal in life was to find satisfying love with a man. The story uses race to show people's role, or importance in society. In the early 1900s, it wasn't uncommon to think black people were inferior to white people and held a lower standard of life. This led to many people being segregated and treated differently due to their skin color. The book “There Eyes Were Watching God”, is dominated by race driven thoughts, race in the story measures a person's superiority, leads to people being in different social classes, and shows how people are racist for no justifiable reason.

Society has been dominated for centuries by a relentless amount of distinctions that have separated mankind in nearly any area of life. From features to wealth, physical entities that define classes of people continually craft the world with an inherent structure that disables any two individuals from achieving equality. However, there is one event that shatters the confines of this rigid world. Death. However, Hurston attacks this notion of death as the great equalizer of the society as to depict a world where racism seeps into all aspects of one’s existence. After the hurricane in which Tea Cake and Janie worked tirelessly to escape its wrath, they are exposed to a world with a greater resemblance to hell than the place they once called home.

”(188). She doesn't believe her race to be something bad either. Hurston was a young colored woman at Barnard College and she said “Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon , and overswept, but through it all I remain myself.” She was too busy “sharpening her oyster knife” (186), to be

As she described it, life was full of hard work and hard play, but even with its vigorous energy, society was somewhat stratified. Groups were still separated by their roots, reputation and assets, but it wasn’t quite as severe as in the “white society” we are accustomed to. It could be said that the social levels were present but not as pronounced, considering certain characters, such as the main character Janie, were able to move from one circumstance to another. However, it usually wasn’t without critical judgment. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston presented three basic social divisions, or three basic lifestyles for African Americans during this

Racism is a widespread problem caused by the ignorance and belief that particular race is superior than other. The topic of “race and racism” is very evident in the works of “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor, “Sweat’ by Zora Naele Hurston and “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison. Each author takes a different approach in their short stories to represent the problem of race and racism. “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor explores less stereotypical racism in the era of racial integration in America. Neither Julian nor his mother are aggressive or ill-educated.

Picture thousands of inner-city children being forced into a system that leads them from school straight to prison. Picture hundreds of stories, seemingly every day, being published about unarmed black men killed by police. Picture a bus full of college students obliviously conducting racist sing-alongs regardless of its potential to offend or hurt others. All these recent events have led some to question the 21st-century idea that Americans live in a society absent of racial strife and inequality (Winant). Are all Americans living the dream of Martin Luther King Jr., or are some still affect by the racism that is seemingly still embedded within our culture like a repugnant weed that has yet to be pulled from its roots? Although race

To Kill A Mockingbird is a novel that bases itself upon racism, morality and injustice. Written by Harper Lee, the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and has become part of the standard literature curriculum in schools nationwide. The story takes place between 1933-1935 in Maycomb, a small, poor, old town in the grips of the Great Depression. The novel has exceeding amount of content that reflects the notions of conscience, courage and conviction. Conscience is believed to be a persons sense of right and wrong, while courage is the action of facing a fear and conviction is known to be a formal declaration by the verdict of a jury or the decision of a judge in a court of law that someone is guilty of a criminal offence but can also be a firmly held belief or opinion. These themes are explored throughout the novel through different characters, shown through quotes and actions.

Everyone in the world is familiar with racism and stereotyping, but many individuals may feel indifferent about those topics and do not wish to speak about them. Robert Heilbroner, the author of “Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgements” states that “Stereotypes are a kind of gossip about the world, a gossip that makes us pre-judge people before we ever lay eyes on them”(200). Racism has yet to become irrelevant and no matter how hard individuals try to eliminate racism, there will always be a greater majority of individuals who are close minded and desire to continue generalizing every race. Furthermore, Robert Heilbroner also states “Thus the trouble is that stereotypes make us mentally lazy”(201). African Americans have to be considered one of the most racially discriminated races in the United States. African Americans face injustices which range from unemployment to death. Although humanity is wired to classify individuals and objects, it is important to understand how the negativity of racial stereotyping affects all aspects of society and how it can be prevented by embracing the differences in race instead of shying away from the topic.

Within the novel, Hurston creates an obvious hierarchy of importance using racism throughout the novel. On the hierarchy, whites are on the top, blacks are in the middle, and Indians are on the bottom. With whites being considered the most important, blacks looked up to them and highly admired them. The “superiority of whiteness hovers over the lives of all the black characters in the book” (Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1998, pg. 307) causing all of the blacks to feel inferior and feel of lesser importance. While working in the fields with Tea Cake, Janie had met a black lady by the name of Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner believed that “anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was” (Hurston, 1998, pg. 144). Because of this, she envied Janie and other whites while hating her own race at the same time. She thought that the whites had the power to treat her how

“Sula” by Toni Morrison is a 1973 novel that deals with a numerous issues as it follows two girls and their lives in the Bottom, Ohio during a time of racism and power struggles. The novel does a wonderful job of exposing power issues between black and white communities, as well as power struggles within the black community. The main characters Sula and Nel represent to different types of black women. Sula, a strong black woman that is determined to be herself in the face of adversity, and Nel, a black woman who seems to have surrendered her freedoms for marriage and the status quo. This novel has themes of racism, feminism, male oppression and self-awareness that are evident in “Tough Guise 2” by Jackson Katz and Zora Neale Hurston's “How It Feels To Be Colored Me,” but the most interesting theme in “Sula” is one of black-on-black oppression.