In the Novel, Native Son by Richard Wright, the main character Bigger is very single minded and is focused on him and his family's social circumstances. He sees the lack of power and status that he has and takes out his frustration about it on the people around him. In beginning of the book he deals with the rat in a very cruel manner, crushing its head and swearing. In this scene we see the first signs of Bigger losing control and channeling the anger about his living conditions, his father, and his social status, on this rat, one of the few things he has power over, and afterwards we see him parade the carcass around. This interaction between Bigger and the Rat is representative of the entire book. The rat (we'll call him Smaller) is unfairly prejudiced against for something that there is no evidence against them for, much like how Bigger is accused of raping Mary without evidence. Even though the rat would do or had done something...
The part where you talked about the "I don't play football" shirts is really interesting. It honestly reminds me of Uni. For a school that tries so hard to put diversity at its forefront, no more black teachers have been hired, and the count of black students also remains stagnant. The stereotype still remains that black students are there to fill a diversity quota rather than deserving to be there like the other classmates. Sometimes I think a shirt should be made "I passed the SSAT too".
ReplyDeleteI agree, your parallel to Uni makes sense to me (unfortunately), we hear about a strive for diversity and not a lot of changes are made. This perpetuates the feeling of being accepted into uni based on a quota and only that.
Delete