Race Relations

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Race relations had been shaped by the slavery background the African Americans are known for, and have been expressed in many different works of literature, including, but not limited to plays, poems, and novels .For well over five hundred years Africans suffered and were being viewed as something less than an animal for labor, but they shaped American history as they broke the chains of slave hood. Even though they were free, white Americans never saw them as equivalent to themselves until the end of the Civil Rights Movement in 1971. Racial identity can cause people to feel ashamed and inferior due to others’ perception of them as out of place and worthless leading them to identify the world around them as limiting and unfair, yet that helped them maintain their dream of overcoming the barrier society has put ,by having ambitions and goals that they one day hoped to reach.
Racial Identity can cause people to feel ashamed and inferior, due to others perception of them. Throughout his life Mr.Z, from the poem Mr.Z by Carl Holman, saw the world as a very limiting place for his race, which is why he saw to express himself as a white man, primarily because he was, "“Taught early that his mother's skin was the sign of error...” (1). His attempt to camouflage into the white society made him, "[Disclaim] kinship with jazz and spirituals ."(4) , and became an “Expert in vintage wines, sauces and salads.”(11) Even though he played out his every move, without fail, in hiding who he was, when he died the obituary writer stated that he was “One of the most distinguished members of his race."(26). It's ironic how even though he spent his whole life trying to perform as a different person as if he was in a play because he was ashamed of h...

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...not much older than him can make a lot of money simply because their race allows them to do so and it is not a barrier they have to struggle with. Also, in the story "Fourth of July" by Audre Lorde, the protagonist describes how her first trip to Washington, D.C occurred and she illustrates how they weren't allowed to eat in a ice cream shop, there she notices how "The waitress was white, and the counter was white, and the ice cream [she] never ate in Washington, D.C., that summer [she] left childhood was white, and the white heat and the white pavement and the white stone monuments of my first Washington summer made me sick to [her] stomach"(20). Everything surrounding her in the land of the free was white and only white people were actually free socially during this time frame, which is why she believes that what happened to them "...wasn't right or fair!"(18).

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