How Does Edward P. Jones Create Intra-Racial Discrimination

The Known World’s setting is in Manchester county, the largest county in the Commonwealth of Virginia, during post-colonial America. The novel portrays the discrimination towards non-whites within Manchester county. Different from the history books, The Known World also indicates that not only white men owned slave but free black men were also capable of owning slaves. For example, Henry Townsend a free black man owned thirty-three slaves and more than fifty acres of land (Jones 5). Edward P. Jones uses institutional racism and intra-racial racism to illustrate discrimination towards race in social order, within The Known World.
Within the novel many white characters such as William Robbins, uses institutional racism to control his wealth
Jones presented another type of racial tension, intra-racial racism. Throughout the novel non-whites were discriminated constantly, being that their social class were always under whites. Henry Townsend, without the guidance of William Robbins may never have been able to afford the life he led before his death, because someone that dark may not be accepted into this society. Subsequently having a lighting skin tone is more desirable, Henry who more than likely had a darker skin tone than desirable was discriminated by his own slave, Mosses, because the notion of being lighter should mean high social status; “It took Mosses more than two weeks to come to understand that someone wasn’t fiddling with him and that indeed a black man, two shade darker than himself, owned him” (Jones 9). Different from Henry, Fern Elston a free black woman who benefited from the lightness of her skin, did not have to work as hard to gain the same social status as Henry; “She was known throughout Manchester as a formable woman, and being educated on top of what she was born with only piled more formability” (Jones 130). Fern’s ancestor had known the benefits of having lighter skin and had moved elsewhere to pass as white, knowing that they did not have to settle as second class citizens; “Some of Fern’s people had gone white, disappearing across the color line and never looking back” (Jones 74). Edward P. Jones