Alice Walker made the conflicts of race very well known in “Everyday Use”. Mrs. Johnson, Dee, and Maggie all give an insight of their experiences and feelings toward being an African American women.
Mrs. Johnson is the narrator who shows some important information on growing up as an African American girl before the Civil Rights era and this plays a pretty huge role in shaping the submissive side of her personality. This is important because the story is essentially all about racial identity, or how racial oppression plays a crucial role in who we are. For instance, the narrators says, “I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask me why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now” (13). As a young kid growing up in a time when black people faced segregation and discrimination, the narrator wasn't encouraged to assert her opinions or question the way things were, a tendency that's clearly stuck with her
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There was always in Dee a tacit awareness that she is lighter skinned than the average black girl “lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure” (10), and that her socio-cultural expectations should somehow be “higher”. When Dee goes away to school, she rejects her ancestral quilts as a way to distance herself from her upbringing. At college, Dee finds African nationalism and seeks to legitimize her identity within this context. She adopts a Ugandan name, Wangero, and style of dress. Dee’s new take on identity is in stark contrast to Mama's sense of identity, which is rooted in her immediate history and ancestry. While Dee seeks to better herself by embracing her roots, she nevertheless subjugates Mama and Maggie by suggesting that they do not know the value of their own culture - one in which they still