Fifty Shades of Skin Color

1996 Words4 Pages

Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, has been caught in the act of classic racism. His personal assistant/girlfriend recorded him in his own home during a fight they were having. Sterling made the remark that she cannot bring a black person to one of his basketball games, even though she herself is African-Mexican American. Racism still exists today and will continue to exist if people like Mr. Sterling do not get the message that it is erroneous to think of another man or woman as a lesser human being because of the color of their skin. Donald says that, “People feel certain things. Hispanics feel certain things towards blacks. Blacks feel certain things towards other groups. It’s been that way historically, and it will always be that way” (TMZ Sports). In Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, she writes about the way that the black community felt about the white people in Lorain, Ohio. Racism itself has its own horrible effects, but when people of the same skin color begin to turn their backs on each other and discriminate towards their own people, it is worse than the typical racism between blacks and whites. However, when parents resent their own children because of the racial genes that they have passed on, the effects are far more destructive than just the oppression from whites. Aunt Jimmy was the adoptive mother of Cholly Breedlove. His birth mother, Jimmy’s niece, thought that she could simply throw away baby Cholly. When Jimmy saw this, she went outside and picked up newborn Cholly out of the garbage heap and saved his life. She was always blatantly honest with Cholly, and she told him the truth when he questioned the truth about his real mother and father. “He wasn’t nowhere around when you was born. Your mam... ... middle of paper ... ...decreased over the years. It may be more subtle and more occurring in private settings, like Mr. Sterling’s home, but it is still present today. The thing is that black people will fight racism when it is coming from whites, but on the other hand when it comes from lighter skin tones of the black race, they will sit watching it torture them from the inside-out. Claudia, Frieda, and Cholly were given not perfect, but semi-normal childhoods where they could grow up and live an ordinary life. Sadly, Junior and Pecola mentally suffered from their lack of whiteness and were punished by their unloving and unforgiving mothers. Works Cited Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York, NY: Vintage International, 2007. PDF. TMZ Sports. "Clippers Owner Donald Sterling to Girlfriend: Don't Bring Black People to My Games (Audio)." YouTube. TMZ, 25 Apr. 2014. Web. 6 May 2014.

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