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Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

1097 Words5 Pages

Racism and Assimilation in Chicago: Selling Your Soul to the System

Author Lorraine Hansberry explores racism and assimilation in her 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun. The play focuses on the Younger family, who are trying to make the most out of bad circumstances. The family gets a life-changing opportunity after their father dies and they recieve $10,000 in life insurance money. Each member of the family has their own idea of how to spend the money, from starting a business to becoming a doctor. However, all their goals seem unattainable due to the extreme African-Americans faced in pre-civil-rights Chicago. Through Linder and Mrs. Johnson, Hansberry suggests that such deeply ingrained white supremacy puts pressure on non-whites to give …show more content…

Hansberry shows how much African-Americans internalize white supremacy through Mrs.Johnson. Mrs.Johnson, a black woman, is the Youngers nosy next-door neighbor. When she hears about the family moving to Clybourne Park, she tells them to stay put. Though she masks her true feelings poorly, Mrs.Johnson pretends like the move is a good idea, saying “You hear some of these Negroes round here talking ‘bout how they don’t go wherever they ain’t wanted and all that...but not me, honey! (This is a lie.) Wilhelmina Othella Johnson goes anywhere, any time she feels like it! (With head movement for emphasis.) Yes I do! Why if we left it up to these here crackheads, the poor niggers wouldn’t have nothing…” (pg 21) Mrs.Johnson pretends like she hasn’t assimilated, but she has. Whites have made it very clear that the races should be segregated, and Mrs.Johnson accepts it. Society has said blacks are lesser for so long that she believes it herself now, and she resents the Youngers for tryign to reject it. Mrs.Johnson also refers to black people by a racial slur. Hansberry do this to show how she has dissociated herself from her race. By using the slur she is degrading her own people down to where whites see them to be- inferior. As the conversation progresses and

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