Racism In Sula

By Pietro, Josh and Harley

Separation of Races

• “As they opened the door marked COLORED ONLY…” – train incident. Page 20

In the train they have a separate compartment for only black people, showing they aren’t considered as normal people but more like beasts.

• “While Helene looked about the tiny stationhouse for a door that said COLORED WOMEN” Page 22

Black women have a separate toilet than white women and they are discriminated by society.

• “He would have left him there but noticed that it was a child, not an old black man, as it first appeared…” Page 63

The bargeman wouldn’t have taken the body out of the river if it were a black man’s body but seeing it’s a white kids body does. This shows how white men have no regard for black men, not even if they are dead and should have the right to be buried.

• “’We made a mistake, sir. You see, there wasn’t no sign. We just got in the wrong car, that’s all. Sir.’“We don’t ‘low no mistakes on this train. Now git your butt on in there.’” Page 21

Black people are treated like animals and white people have no respect for them, not even when they make a simple mistake.

Racism within Death• " . . . I know what every colored woman in this country is doing."

"What's that?" "Dying just like me." Page 143Sula here is saying that women are struggling to live in this society. • “Just over there was the colored part of the cemetery. She went in.

Sula was buried there along with Plum, Hannah and now Pearl.” Page 170-171

Racism can also be found in death. Black people even have to be buried in separated cemeteries and this could show a never-ending factor to racism.

Controversial• “When he first came to Medallion, the people called him Pretty Johnnie,

but Eva looked at his milky skin and cornsilk hair and out of a mixture of fun and meanness called him Tar Baby.”

The people of Bottom think of Tar Baby being the minority and not them, since he is in a town with a large majority of black people and as soon as a black person arrives he is discriminated, just like black people in the “white town” of Medallion. There is also irony present here since Eva calls him “Tar Baby”.

• “Things were so much better in 1965. Or so it seemed. You could go downtown and see colored people working in the dime store behind the counters, even handling money with cash-register keys around their necks. And the colored man taught mathematics at the junior high school.” Page 163

Things start resembling life how it should be in 1965 since before that year black people were heavily discriminated and not aloud to work. In 1965 black men are even allowed to teach mathematics, something that wouldn’t have been possible in the before.

THE END