Race Relations

            As the novel progresses, issues and events regarding race relations emerge frequently. Many characters are African Americans growing in a world where being of color was not acceptable or worthy of equal treatment. Nanny has experience with slavery from her childhood years, and attempts to teach Janie everything to keep her out of the brutal path society created for blacks. For example Nanny tells Janie, “Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out” (Hurston 14). Clearly Nanny has the insight African Americans eventually obtain over the course of their life; the white male or female is of higher class and dominates over the colored people. While slavery still persisted, African Americans including Nanny were forced to alter their lifestyle to accommodate for the whites.

            African Americans evidently never received equality when it was legally required. The novel takes place mainly in the 1900’s, slightly thirty years past the ratification of both the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. These amendments abolished slavery and granted equal protection under the law, especially equality for African Americans. According to the novel, equal rights were not handed to the African Americans as the government had planned. The audience observes this in multiple situations, one in which Janie faces racist bullies in school. “They’d push me ‘way from de ring plays and make out they couldn’t play wid nobody dat lived on premises” (Hurston 9). Even when the African Americans were deserving of equal treatment, they were neglected. Granted, Nanny received harsh treatment during slavery, but afterwards her children and grandchildren received punishment of similar nature.     

 

The whites believe since laws were passed granting equality for African Americans, the issue should be settled. In the African American point of view the laws are helpful, but need to be enforced in society.