Racial Discrimination In Literature

In times of ignorance, people tend to channel their anger towards other people that they do not understand. They usually believe that other individuals are inferior to [a] different race or races. This is the definition of racism. In humanity, racism and stereotypical beliefs exist, and always will exist, everywhere. We may not realize it, but most humans, including myself, judge people based on first glances, whether it be what they’re wearing, or how they look, or even something as little as what their shoes look like. Everyday we jump to conclusions about various people, and that decides how we act around those people and how we treat them. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and The Tortilla Curtain
Many individuals jump to conclusions about people who are different from them. In The Tortilla Curtain, Delany yells at two Mexican men falsely accusing them of arson, "Delaney looked round at his neighbors, their faces drained and white, fists clenched, ready to go anywhere, do anything, seething with it, spoiling for it, a mob. They were out here in the night, outside the walls, forced out of their shells, and there was nothing to restrain them." (Boyle 289). Delany angrily accuses two Mexican men, José Navidad and his friend, of arson who then get arrested because they were Mexican, which shows how some white cops racially profile other races of people. Additionally, some people are hypocrites and racial profilers. In The Tortilla Curtain, the duke is talking about how all blacks are thieves, "Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you know the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across money and not borrow some of it?" (Twain 97). The duke is saying that all blacks are robbers when that’s what he is, which is racial profiling as well as ignorance and hypocrisy. Others also suffer from ignorance and racial profiling, but this time, they don’t realise it. In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily is thinking about what T. Ray thought about colored women, it is in this moment that she realises she thought the same thing and that she is also slightly prejudice, “T. Ray did not think colored women were smart. Since I want to tell the whole truth, which means the worst parts, I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white. Lying on the cot in the honey house, though, all I could think was August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised by this. That's what let me know I had some prejudice buried inside me.” (Kidd 103). This quote is an example of