Colorism In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Gatsby has been obsessed with Daisy, and ready to do everything in order to get back her love, even if he needs to do illegal stuff to earn his wealth to reach her status. But Myrtle is completely different from Gatsby; she is so obsessed with being in a high social class that she would do anything in order to reach her goal even if she needs to cheat on her husband. Gatsby very quickly fell in love with Daisy but due to his lower class status never could marry her. "She never loved you, do you hear? She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me.

A mammy, as defined by Mirriam-Webster University, is “a black woman serving as a nurse to white children especially formerly in the southern United States.” However, in modern viewpoints, the title of “Mammy” is considered a racial slur. According to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, the Mammy caricature “portrayed an obese, coarse, maternal figure. She had great love for her white "family," but often treated her own family with disdain. Although she had children, sometimes many, she was completely desexualized. She "belonged" to the white family, though it was rarely stated.

Reverse racism is a phenomenon in which discrimination occurs against a dominant or majority of the race, which some people think does not exist because in order to be racist, you have to have a privilege. Racism involves the idea that one’s race is superior and has the right to dominate others. Many people, the minority of the population, think that white people have white privilege, where they can get away with doing such things because of their white color while people of color would have a harder time if put in bad situation. For example, the media portraits white suspects as innocent but any people of color would be labeled as terrorists. The problem with reverse racism also brings up the topic of slavery.

Although Walter does not deserve the power, the manhood of Walter Lee enables him to “control” the family. Conversely, Beneatha’s talkativeness and her aggressive personality are against how a 1950s African American should act. Ruth asks “Can’t you be a little sweeter sometimes? (Act 1, Scene 1)” to indicate the modest characteristics women should have. Furthermore, Ruth’s decision of abortion at the beginning of the play was unconventional since it was against gender expectation because it is against her duty as a wife and a mother.

This repression and ill-treatment yielded psychological disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and caused some slaves to harm themselves and others. There are even accounts of mothers killing their own children to save them from being separated and enslaved. In order to cut costs and prevent rebellion, slave families were separated at the whim of their slaveholder. The possibility of separation was an ever-present threat to any and all slaves. The principle of partus sequitur ventrem meant that any child born to a slave woman would be also be a slave, regardless of who the father was.

There is a myriad of examples to be seen of Jean Finch being disillusioned by Atticus. For example, in chapter 8 of Go Set a Watchman, Atticus says, "I especially liked the part where the Negroes, bless their hearts, couldn't help being inferior to the white race because their skulls are thicker and their brain-pans shallower—whatever that means—so we must all be very kind to them and not let them do anything to hurt themselves and keep them in their places." This quote said by Atticus lists Negroes as an inferior race that needs to be supported and lead by white people. This shocks Jean by Atticus saying that he is far superior to the Negroes in all ways when in the past Atticus stood up for them and tried to give them equality. Another case of a racist comment from Atticus, in chapter 17, asks, "Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters?

“I want you, Actaeon. I wish I were / shroud white; O that you’d notice [me] and mouth / each monumental curve” (ll. 7-9), it is clarified that a gaze is not enough since Actaeon desires Diana, the maiden want him to actually desire her. Because, although she is black, she is a fairer person than the mistress, because no matter what could happen, the maiden could not punish someone the way a Goddess can do, as described in “[…] she cursed you / for looking. In this pine-sweet grove, you turned from man to horned and dappled stag: sentenced.” (ll.

It’s the kind of violence you only read or see in fiction, and to here described as truth makes me sick to my stomach. Thompson knew that being this descriptive would help him make his point and provide persuasive evidence that the Southern slave system was morally wrong. Thompson makes it impossible to even begin to defend the slave owners and supporters of this system. My final example is when Thompson’s sister was sold to a new, crueler master, and upon seeing her mother for the first time since she was sold, wept. “As soon as my sister saw our mother, she ran to her and fell upon her neck, but was unable to speak a word.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s transformation as a woman of color is explored throughout the novel. Janie’s husbands are shown for what they are along with other characters such as Janie’s grandmother and Mrs. Turner. Still, race is a big topic in Hurston’s novel in several scenes, including when Janie recognizes she is different than her white peers as a child, when Nanny implies that she was raped by her White male slave master, when Janie is let off the hook for killing her last husband in self-defense, when several characters admit that they prefer lighter skinned Black women, and finally, with Jody being the first Black mayor of a Black town. Wright and Hurston both do a great job of keeping readers entertained and informed about the way people act, and how structural problems like racism and sexism are at

Sethe and her daughter are isolated from the community due to Sethe’s killing of her youngest child, an action Sethe justifies as “put[ting] my babies where they’d be safe” but one which Paul D sees as a love “too thick” (Morrison 193). Her misjudgment fits Aristotle’s description of the fatal flaw. The trauma she experienced as a slave made her justifiably determined to not let her children return to slavery, but her panicked actions resulted in her isolation the community. As her isolation is caused by herself rather than an external force such as slavery, she is a fitting model for a Greek tragedy protagonist. Sethe’s “thick love” continues to linger after the killing, as she says she wanted to die alongside her youngest child after she killed her so she can continue to take care of her daughter, and states “[Beloved] is mine” after her realization that Beloved is her daughter (Morrison 241).

Peggy McKintosh makes a sort of parallel between the power of privilege that men posses over women and how white people have a privilege over colored people. The parallel between these two examples is that they both have a side that is more privileged than the other but they seem to not notice that they have that privilege. Men grow up in a society where they are taught not to show that they have more power and privilege over women and it is the same way with white people. White people are not taught that they are oppressors against people of color. They just grew up and were taught to not recognize their privilege of just being born white.

At the same time it devalued black women as promiscuous and undesirable. The CRT scholars believed these stereotypes permitted privileged white men to accept a limited behavior from their female counterpart, which both elevated and trapped them at the same time. CRT scholars stated how racism has pitted white and black women against each other in society. They argue these stereotypes still persist today, long after the end of slavery. Black womanhood is continually being devalued, while the white womanhood is elevated, but restricted.

I hate knowing that cultural appropriation is still occurring. The fact that white people are able to take the African American’s originality without going through the same negative reaction as black people is unfair, and this goes for all the “trends” they decide to copy. White people are privileged. They take aspects of the African American culture, yet they do not receive the harsh feedback that African Americans would get when they do the same thing. I believe that white people should stop using the excuse that it’s “just a hairstyle” or “just a trend” and realize that African American people wear what they wear for a reason.

The term white privilege has become a bad term, just like the word feminism. Society has found a way to distort and change the definition of terms like these to avoid the actual issue that the term is bringing up. By definition feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities, but the word has come to carry a negative connotation (Webster). Many who believe in the principle would not call themselves feminists or participate in trying to reach equality to avoid that connotation placed on them. Their silence only aids the continuation of inequality between men and women.

The author tells how sad is the life of a slave girl and how, as soon as she is old enough, and against her will, she would learn about the malice of the world. Meanwhile, male slaves rarely suffered from such abuse, and different from women, slavery mostly affected their manliness. As Douglas says while describing one of the oversees: "It was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary man to hear him talk." By saying so, he proved how, at a very patriarchal time, male slaves completely lost the bravery and "superiority" often used to describe white men. Therefore, slavery did have some different effects towards women and men, but always towards a worse condition.