“Mayor ________ bought Miz Millie a new car, cause she said if colored people could have cars then one for her was past due. So he bought her a car, only he refuse to show her how to drive it. Everyday he comes home from town he look at her, look out the window at her car, say, How you enjoying’er Miz Millie. She fly off the sofa in a huff, slam the door going in the bathroom. She ain’t got no friends. So one day she say to me, car been sitting out in the yard two months, Sofia, do you know how to drive? I guess she remembered first seeing me up gainst Buster Broadnax car. Yes ma’am I say….. Do you think you could teach me? She says.” (The Color Purple, Page 100)
This quote is from Celie’s forty-fourth letter. In this passage the reader can see the racism in which white people portray against black people. Miz Millie, the mayor’s wife, demands a new car from him because she thinks that if a black person can own a car then she should own a car also. She thinks that whatever a black person has a white person should have also and it has to be better then the black person’s. Even though Miz Millie owns a better car then Sofia she still doesn’t know how to drive but Sofia does and the mayor refuses to teach her. So Miz Millie asks Sofia to teach her how to drive. If Sofia doesn’t do it she will probably be forced to do it. So she helps her out and now Sofia has to take care of the kids and house and teach Miz Millie how to drive which makes her situation worse. It seems as the white owners are putting her to work like back in the slave days and she doesn’t have any say what so ever. Sofia is a much better driver then Miz Millie which shows that black people can be better then white people in certain situations. So why do the white people still discriminate against the blacks and feel like they have more power over them? Anything that a white person can do a black person can do it too maybe even better.
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2 comments:
I don't think the only reason the white people discriminate against the black people is because they think they are better. That is a big reason, but it is also partially due to the fact that the whites are used to the feeling of being superior and they don't want to give it up. Imagine if you were promoted to be a manager and you gain all this power and authority. You work as manager for a few years now and suddenly you become demoted. Would you really want to give up your superiority? That’s basically what I think the whites during the time period of the book are feeling.
I agree. White people did want to feel superior to blacks because they thought black people of the lowest race. White people would buy better things then black people to feel like they are superior to black people. If a black person could do something a white person could automatically do it to.
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