Racism In The Color Purple By Alice Walker

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Racism is deeply rooted in our culture and history. It is the belief that another person is less than human due to the colour of their skin, language, customs or place of birth. Racism can be seen throughout history and all around the world it has influenced wars and the forming of nations. In the novel ''The Color Purple'' by Alice Walker the author explores the theme of the cynical nature of racism and it's affect on society. In the novel, it is clearly stated that racism is used has a form of control by Caucasians over the African-Americans and other minorities. In our culture and in the novel racism is used has a form of control to dominate and oppress minorities. The oppression and domination of minorities is made possible by using certain tools such has xenophobia, the law and different branches of racism.
Xenophobia is an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners, strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. In the novel ''The Color Purple'' the Caucasians fear the African-Americans , more specifically the African-American male, thinking that he is a brute devoid of emotions, their fear of the black male is fuelling their acts of oppression towards a different race. Xenophobia is used as a way to oppress and dominate a race, to understand racism we have to understand its origins. There is no evidence suggesting when racism started but has instead been a part of history for as long as we know. For example, the ancient Greeks believed that some tribes were better than others and during the thirteen and fourteen century it was a popular belief that Jews were involved with witchcraft and associated with the Devil, those were the first sign of racism has we know it today. It is also present during the period of Renaissanc...

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...racism is used as a way to oppress and dominate minorities.
The oppression and domination is a big issue that we still see today . The oppression is not always easy to spot nor is it always intended but it is still there. It is true that enormous progress has been made to end this issue but there is still work to be done. The domination and oppression of minorities is present through our daily life through xenophobia, our legal system and the use of different forms of racism. Like in the novel the ''The Color Purple'' the characters do not beat racism but they do understand that the colour of their skin, ethnicity , gender or sexual orientation does not affect yourself worth. This is a lesson the our society as yet to learn or even understand, to be able to have a future that we will be proud of we have to understand that everybody is equal in every shape or form.

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