Racism In Ernest Gaines A Gathering Of Old Men

Lest We Forget! This is an ode attributed to two different poems, but appropriate for this essay as well. Accordingly, many modifications are taking place in the South illustrating racial progress, nevertheless, the relations between Blacks and Whites stays subjected to the throes of deep-rooted prejudice, and biases, especially from Whites to the Blacks. As a consequence, in South Louisiana, racism toward Blacks remains extremely more widespread by the Cajun’s. Specifically, the Encyclopedia of World Cultures report “within the regional class structure, Cajuns are considered better than Blacks, but the lowest group of Whites. In general, they were seen as poor, uneducated, fun-loving backwoods folk. Cajuns generally viewed themselves as superior to the poor rural Whites referred to as Rednecks (1996).” In fact, Cajun’s are continually inflicting violent beatings plus death on Black men, women, as well as children is met with hopelessness by Blacks. Also, the Cajun’s are very unfair and bogus in their daily interactions and business dealings with Blacks. However, in Ernest Gaines Novel, A Gathering of Old Men,

For example, Gaines skillfully intertwined death and the past and present history of the subjugations of Blacks to Whites, where Blacks lived, and how Blacks made a living. To illustrate, Gaines has Snookum; a young Black male, being summoned by Candy; the owner of the plantation, to run and tell the older Black men to get here quick, the body of Beau Baton; a Cajun farmer, is lying by his tractor at the former deteriorating Marshall Plantation; home of Mathu; a Black man. Gaines also uses the tractor, plow, and the graveyard to further emphasize the death of a way of life Blacks submitted to. This symbolism is indicative of the past and present, and life and death in the order of life in the South for Blacks and