How Do People Stigmatize Race, Culture, And Identity?

This short story follows the lives of two girls growing up at St. Bonny’s orphanage. The author, Toni Morrison, states that one girl is white and the other girl is African American. However, Morrison does not explain who is of what race. Twyla and Roberta are the only girls in the orphanage who have mothers, they are just not around. Twyla’s mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick. The story shows many encounters the girls have with one another, as they form their own lives outside the orphanage. Twyla married a sensible man and works as a server. Roberta married a widower and has four step kids. The racial tensions between the two girls creates an unsteady relationship throughout their adulthood. The story places emphasis on how people stigmatize race, culture, and identity. Twyla and Robert need to be able to suppress views of minority
This is shown throughout their friendship. When they first got put in the orphanage together Twyla said, “So for the moment it didn’t matter that we looked like salt and pepper standing there.” They got over the stigma of their different skin colors in order to form a lasting relationship. However, they are torn apart because of cultural hegemony.
In “Playing in the Dark”, Morrison explains, “I am a black writer struggling with and through a language that can powerfully evoke and enforce hidden signs of racial superiority, cultural hegemony, and dismissive othering.” The term cultural hegemony refers to the ability of a group to hold power over social institutions, and thus, to strongly influence the everyday thoughts, expectations, and behavior of the rest of society by directing the normative ideas, values, and beliefs that become the dominant worldview of society. In the story,