Racism: A Demoralizing Consequence of Human Error
... society. Loss of identity was a most unfortunate effect of racism. In Native Son, Bigger Thomas struggles to find an identity in a civilization that denies him of any sense of worth. Amid a white humankind that seeks to destroy any ambition within a Negro, Bigger fails to view his murder of Mary Dalton as an act of shame. Rather, he is for the first time, strangely thrilled at the thought that he committed a crime that no white man would have anticipated a black man could carry out on his own. “He [Wright] is describing a person so alienated from traditional values, restraints, and civilized modes of behavior, that he feels free to construct his own ethics—that for him an act of murder is an act of creation…”(Margolies 4093). This social subjugation that has caused Bigger’s metamorphosis into a person with a disconnected value system has thus driven him to assert his own individuality through the murder of an innocent rich white girl. Through Bigger’s terrible crimes, he gains an identity and a freedom in which he had a choice of action and the opportunity to act and to feel that his actions carried weight (Wright 396). Obviously, one can conclude that Bigger Thomas’s acquired “identity” was in vain, which emphasizes the fact that racism blotted out any hope of personality for the Negro. Many African Americans were psychologically disturbed as a result of the loss of identity and the stimulation of fear. In Native Son, Bigger Thomas believes he was doomed by white society before he was born. All his ambitions, talents, and dreams are repressed because of society’s judgment of him on the basis of the color of his skin. Racism becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy for both parties. The world will not acknowledge Bigger as a human being and Bigger gives into this false belief. Bigger says, “that he always felt he would come to a violent end, that something like this would happen to him”(Galloway par 2). White civilization’s condemnation of Bigger and their label of him as beastly forecasts his death [physically and metaphorically speaking] from the very start. “Bigger knows deep in his heart that he is destined to bear endless days of dreary poverty, abject humiliation, and tormenting frustration, for this is what being Negro means”(Margolies 4092). The stereotypes become reality…Bigger’s reality. The conditioning of his inferiority as a black man psychologically handicaps him. Hopeless, Bigger creates a secondary self-fulfilling prophecy as he molds himself to the stereotypes of his presumed barbarous, criminal, and mediocre manner. Similarly, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye provides an example of the occurrence of self-fulfilled prophecies. Pecola Breedlove believes that by obtaining blue eyes she will be beautiful. White as the standard for beauty causes Pecola to associate blue eyes with refinement. Throughout the novel, many incidents occur to reinforce Pecola’s blackness. As society sees it, Pecola’s blackness is what makes her ugly. “The scale of judgment has been modified to white standards, therefore forcing African Americans to be judged inadequately.” The desire to conform to these standards plays a significant role in how Pecola views herself (Lott 1,7). She therefore initiates a self-fulfilled prophecy, believing she is disfigured and wishing to have the blue eyes under the pretense that they will make her beautiful and accepted. Pecola falls victim to this fraudulent reality, which drives her to insanity by the end of the novel. Racism confronts Pecola with attitudes and images based on the myth of white supremacy that reinforce her tendency toward self-hatred (Alexander par 4). Therefore, she becomes a psychologically distressed Negro girl, a self-propelled revelation, and a sitting target of racial discrimination…an unfortunate subsistence for many African Americans. The loss of religion and cultural heritage is a major theme in The Bluest Eye as well as a most fateful consequence of racial intolerance. In the novel, Soaphead Church (of mixed African American and American Indian origin) believes himself to be superior to pure blacks. His yearning to detach himself from anything dirty [black] and his worship of whiteness deforms Soaphead into a perverted religious hypocrite. He is a character that not only rejects his African heritage, but who also relinquishes his identity as a human being in favor of the fact that he is some kind of god. He seeks to serve people as an omnipotent out of a selfish desire to assert his power over those weaker than himself, such as Pecola, who comes to him believing she can gain blue eyes (Alexander par 27). His deceitful...