Examples Of Racism In The Secret Life Of Bees

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Racism has been an important issue for many years. It has affected millions of people all over the world. Sometimes you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. That is what Sue Monk Kidd tries to convey in the book “The secret life of bees”. Throughout the book, she exemplifies examples of racism which affect the characters in different ways. Racism created a space with people that exist till this day. Lily experienced many situations where her skin color isolated her from people she wanted to be around. In the book her head is filled with lies about the differences people with different skin pigment have. She is told that they are not the same which is also another reason why she feels like an outcast. According to the passage it states,”T.Ray did not think colored women were smart. Since i want to tell the whole truth, which …show more content…

In the conception of the book, Lily was told that colored skin people are nothing alike to the whites. She was told that they aren’t good looking or as smart as they were. Lily experiences something new which interchanges her point of view on colored people. According to the text it states, “He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist and short-cropped hair like most of the negro boys wore, but it was his face i couldn’t help staring at. If he was shocked over me being white, i was shocked over him being handsome”. Kidd starts to change lily’s perspective on colored people by having an encounter with Zach. Since she was told that they arent good looking she was surprised that he wasn’t how people described him. In addition, “He was about to be a junior at the black high school, where he made all A’s and played halfback on the football team”. In this quote, lily also notices that Zach has good grades which means colored people are as smart as white. Kidd uses these examples to change the way Lily sees colored

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