Racism In The Fourth Of July By Audre Lorde

675 Words2 Pages

“Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome” (Rosa Parks). Lorde expresses her first time experiencing racism when she goes on a family vacation with her family. Racism is an unequal way of defining where a person belongs on a social scale. It can affect someone emotionally when treated in this unjust manner. In The Fourth of July, by Audre Lorde, Lorde expresses what it feels like to grow up with racism in her lifetime, which shows the unfair and unequal effects of racism.
Families who have been victims of racism face many problems growing up in a country where skin tone matters. As Lorde’s sister was getting ready to go on a class trip, the teachers had pulled her aside to tell her she could not go,Lorde explains, “But the nuns had given her back her deposit in private, explaining to her that the class, all of whom were white, except …show more content…

This reference uses diction and a symbol. Lorde's sister's skin tone is used as a symbol of her place on the social hierarchy for the kids in her class and her. Lorde uses diction to illustrate the word use of ¨happy.” Lorde feels a sense of unequalness between the other students to both her and her sister, because the skin tone of Lorde and her sister is different from the other students. When Audre found out she was being treated unfairly based on her skin tone, Lorde felt hurt and wondered if the country of the ‘free’ was actually free. Lorde writes, “I spent the afternoon squinting up at monuments to freedom

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