By Pietro, Josh and Harley
• “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.
• " . . . I know what every colored woman in this country is doing."
"What's that?" "Dying just like me." Page 143
Sula 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.
• “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.