Internalized Racism Today

    

Internalized racism is a concept that is still prevalent in today’s society but we do not easily recognize it because it isn’t an idea that is widely known today. The textbook definite of this is the internalization by people of racist attitudes towards members of their own ethnic group, including themselves. We see this on social media apps like Instagram and twitter, however it is used more to make fun of people’s ethnic group in a comical way. For example, some black people have accepted the stereotype, “black people love fried chicken” or “black people can’t swim”, now granted these examples are the lighter ones, but during time periods where segregation was still occurring a lot of the African American community struggled with it.

Many characters in the Song of Solomon experience internalized racism, including…

·    Hagar who is upset with her dark complexion and curly hair. She wants to be light skinned because she thinks Milkman will only love her is she looks like a white woman. She is ashamed of her skin color and feels worthless all because she is surrounded by people who make her feel ugly.

·    All the men at the barbershop who dismiss the horrific event of Emit Till. They focus on the wrong doing of Till and dismisses the fact that he was brutally murdered for a simple cat call. They make fun of him by saying, “He think he in Tom Sawyer land?” (81), and by doing this they are putting the blame on Till more than his killers.

·    Tommy at the barbershop who gives a speech on how African Americans will never be able to have the things white people have or be recognized for something good that they did.

·    Corinthians who makes a joke about how black people can’t swim and how, “Negros don’t like the water,” (35).

·    Lena who says, “There’s no colored people who can afford to have two houses,” (33). By saying this she is accepting the fact that in during her time a black person could not live as comfortably as a white person and why would they need to in her eyes?

·    Milkman who hates the fact that he is black and thinks he is meant to live like a white man. He blames his race on his unhappiness and does everything he can to be more “white”; this makes many of the people around him upset.

On the other hand, Guitar is a character who doesn’t easily accept the “norms” that his people are forced to go through. Instead of ignoring the fact that his friends and family must get used to the way they are being treated, he joins a terrorist organizing called the Seven Days. This internalized racism shown by others has damaged Guitar because he is resorting to murdering innocent people because of how is being treated and forced to act. Even though we may joke about these things on social media, in the end it can go too far and lead people to believe that what they are going through is okay.

Rose Petals

The rose petals in Chapter nine of Song of Solomon symbolize the superficiality behind the Dead family. The roses are made by Corinthians and Lena who are viewed as emotionless and their sole purpose in life is to make roses. Corinthians even excepts the fact that this fake outer shell has consumed her, “[Corinthians] woke up one day to find herself a forty-two-year-old maker of rose petals, she suffered a severe depression” (Morrison 189). Corinthians tries to escape the “smothering death of dry-roses” (Morrison 199) by falling for Porter, because he is real to her and she has never done something that her father wouldn’t approve of. She is breaking free from these chains the rose petals put on her and turning her life around. Both her and Lena are suck in this “hallucination” that the roses put on them and they are keeping the sisters from acting “real”. 

These fake roses are so toxic to them because instead of breaking free of the routine they go back to it to escape facing the fact that their family is not healthy and that they must find something more to do with their lives. This is similar to Ruth’s obsession with her watermark; it keeps her stuck in the past so she can avoid the future. Contrary to her sister, Lena “seemed resigned to her life” (Morrison 189). However, the reader knows that is not the truth because at the end of the chapter Lena comes to realize that she is done with being fake and acting like a helpless woman. She emphasizes to Milkman, “‘I don’t make roses anymore, and you have pissed your last in this house’” (Morrison 216). This is her way of saying she is now in charge of herself and she is not letting the mistreatment by her brother and father get by again without saying something. By not making the roses anymore, it shows her turning point; she is done faking this attitude and is now becoming a new, stronger woman. In this chapter red has a negative connotation instead of a warm connotation. It represents the danger of their future by acting superficial and not making their lives happen for themselves.

Let Your Wings Take You Where You Want to Be

     Freedom is an ongoing motif Morrison demonstrates in her novel, The Song of Solomon. The novel begins with Robert Smith killing himself by jumping off a building, which is a representation of how he wants to escape from his life. You can draw a parallel between this and how slaves were being oppressed and their want to escape from their brutal lives. The letter that Mr. Smith wrote before his death said he would “take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings” (Morrison 1). Flying and wings remind you of a bird and its freedom. It can fly away whenever it wants and find a new life for itself, however it did not get better for the African Americas for a long time. In the novel Morrison makes Smith’s death seem like a heroic action because she compares him to Charles Lindbergh who is a nationwide hero for flying over the Atlantic. When most of us look at his death hero doesn’t even come to mind but what Morrison is trying to express is that he is a hero for his black community. Because of his death he allowed for the first black baby to be born which is very heroic but it did not get realized right away. Song is also a representation of the African American’s hope of freedom or it just simply makes them feel comfortable and unrestricted. “Their dilemma was solved when a woman suddenly burst into song” (Morrison 5). This is analogous to the times when slaves would sing songs of their homes and ancestors while they were in the cotton fields. It was a way for them to escape the horrific way they were being treated. This woman begins to sing when everyone is depressed by Smiths dead body and she tries to take some of the bad attention away and focus on the singing as an escape.

Gatsby Trapped in the Past

This passage from the Great Gatsby particularly spoke to me,

“As I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Fitzgerald 95).

For the sake of my readers amusement I will only pick out a couple lines and explain what they mean to me and their significance to the novel.

The line, “There must have been moments even that afternoon when daisy tumbled short of his dreams…his illusion” summarizes Gatsby’s fascination with the past and all the expectations he has of Daisy and their possible new life. Gatsby is stuck in the time when he fell in love with Daisy, her money, and the security she could provide him, and he is still hanging onto that theory that Daisy is everything he could want in a wife. However, Daisy is not the perfect woman he thinks she is, and it is not her fault but Gatsby’s false hope he holds on to. Fitzgerald uses word choice to describe how the characters are acting or feeling. For example, he writes “tumbled” to illustrate how Gatsby is still falling for Daisy, but when someone falls it usually results in someone getting hurt.

We’ve all heard the saying “if we set our mind to it, we can do it”. This is like the offensive way of making your life the best it can be; make it happen yourself. However, when Nick says, “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his heart”, it is taking more of the defensive side. Nothing can get in the way of what we have deeply engraved in our heart because we will always protect what is important to us. Just like how nothing will persuade Gatsby to stop pursuing Daisy. This can be seen either positively or negatively but in my opinion, it shows the beauty and the struggle and perseverance we give to improve our lives.