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Racism In The Story Fences

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The story “Fences” reflected the experiences of African Americans in the 1950’s. “Fences” demonstrated how there was segregation between white and black people surrounding racism, discrimination and the restrictions that African Americans were bound to. In the 1950’s the Civil Right Movement begun. African Americans fought to have the same and equal rights as white Americans. There was a lot of racism in the 1950’s and African Americans were treated as low class citizens, superior to the white American. “Fences” exemplified very well how racism affected African Americans. African Americans didn’t really have a chance of being successful and most were in poverty. In the story Troy had dreams of being a successful baseball player, but due to …show more content…

Hell, I’m fifty-three years old and can do better than Selkirk’s .269 right now!” (Wilson, 1985, 1401). “Fences” indicated that Troy wouldn’t allow his son Cory to play football for college, because he didn’t want his son to go through the hurt and pain he went through because of racism. He thought that Cory would not have a chance at being successful at football due to being black, “I don’t care where he coming from. The white man ain’t gonna let you get nowhere with that football noway” (Wilson, 1985, 1399). African Americans also experienced getting low class jobs and unable to get a white collar job at the time. In relations to “Fences”, the narrator shows how Troy had a job lifting and was getting paid the bare minimal. Troy thought that it was unfair that the white men got to drive the truck and the black men had to do all the hard laboring. “Why you got the white men driving and the colored lifting? Told him, what’s the matter, don’t I count? You think only white fellows got sense enough to drive a truck….”(Wilson, 1985, 1384). To conclude, in the 1950’s African Americans experienced racism and wasn’t treated fairly. A lot of African Americans were not able to succeed due to their skin color, which had a huge impact on them physically and

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