Race And Poverty In The Story Fences

Fences is a story that displays various life issues that have happened in real life. The problems that have been addressed throughout this story have to do with race, and poverty. Some of these issues have been done knowingly, and others have happened indirectly. Many of the problems that occurred were social norms back in the 1950’s, for example race because there was a lot of discrimination and disadvantages towards black people, which ultimately lead to poverty. Race was an obstacle in the process of acquiring a job for many black’s, which prevented them from supporting their families financially. In the story Fences the main character who takes part in both social problems concerning race and poverty is Troy, the protagonist, which was shown through

The story took place in the 1950’s when integration was beginning to happen, which was progress to end racism, however it did not terminate it completely. The first sign of this theme is when Troy said that he asked his boss a question, “Why you got the white men’s driving and the colored lifting?” This shows that there is racial inequality at work. It seems like black people were left to do all the dirty work while the whites were left with the easy jobs and getting paid more. “Whiteness in this society is not so much a color as a condition. It is a structured advantage that channels unfair gains and unjust enrichments to whites while imposing unearned and unjust obstacles in the way of blacks” (Lipsitz, 3) Overall, in jobs and especially in the 1950’s, whites are always going to have an advantage in anything over blacks, just for their skin color. Whites will be offered better job opportunities, whereas blacks are hardly given any jobs. If blacks did get any job opportunity, they had to take whatever was handed to them even if they got paid relatively less than any other white worker with their same job position, so they could support their