Racial discrimination is a widespread issue affecting millions across the globe. These people are being ill-treated merely because of the colour of their skin. Set in the nineteenth century, The Book of Negroes written by Lawrence Hill, follows Aminata Diallo through the unjust racial discrimination present at the time and the brutal impacts it has on people. Racism has impacted Aminata severely, from losing her childhood to being forced to slavery, and even after all that she had to endure the pain of having her children taken from her. Aminata is shown as strong female lead in the novel, despite this, there are many horrors she faced that will haunt her forever. The racist ideologies cause an eleven-year-old girl to lose her childhood, she is …show more content…
Each and every time, they were starved, flattened and sucked out of my mind, and replaced by visions of my mother motionless in the woods and my father, lips quivering while his chest erupted” (Hill 34). This quotation illustrates the extent of pain that she goes through. It is understandable for her to feel like this, the image of her mother and father brutally murdered is forever scarred in her mind. The innocence she once held is now gone. Hill shows the negative impacts of racism and how it caused a child to witness her parents die and how that will stay forever with her. Not only does she witness her parents’ death, she is raped by her master at the age of 12. “There was no oil, and the pain was terrible as he plunged deep inside my body where nobody belonged but me… I just wanted to live through this, and have it end” (Hill 184). Rape is a horrific thing for any woman, but, to undergo this in foreign country where an African woman has no voice is barbaric. The last part of this quotations shows the pain that Aminata is going through, she can do nothing but wait for it to be over. The reason she cannot do anything to help herself