Examples Of Racism In Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, we follow a woman named Jaine and her journey as a black woman in the south during the 1930’s. It follows her love life, her life as a woman, and her life as a black woman, but specifically as a black woman with lighter skin. That detail is very important to the topics described in the book, the topic being racism. Racism was a very big problem, very prominent in the 1930’s with events such as Jim Crow being active. When racism is depicted in the book, Hurston shows more nuances of racism such as internalized racism, colorism, and white supremacy. Throughout the book Janie is depicted and is characterized by her lighter skin, the colorism shows how the ideals were at the time in America.

The black people throughout the book continue to be put below white people, after death, by the system, and by other people. After Tea Cake’s murder trial the white man discusses their feelings about it, “She didn't kill no white man, did she? Well, as long as she doesn’t shoot no white man she kin kill jus’ as many n**** as she please” (189). The very present white supremacy shows that the death of a black person did not matter as long as he wasn’t white, this shows the mentality of white supremacists in the book. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, there are many moments where colorism, white supremacy, and internalized racism are actively presented within many characters and situations. There are many moments where these all interlap and effect many characters at once, such as Mrs. Turner and her internalized racism, which has an undertone of white supremacy and colorism is a major part of it. In the book racism is one topic and a large one, but the real showing of racism happens in these subcategories that are present throughout the