Racism In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

In the story, Of Mice and Men, the setting is taken place on a farm in the 1930s. In this time period, the Great Depression and racism were occurring. Racism has changed over the years but it still exists today. On the ranch there is only one black man and the rest are white. In addition, racism in this time period had caused Crooks to undergo many struggles throughout his life. Crooks, a black man, was given this name due to the fact that he was kicked by a horse and as a result made his back crooked. Crooks stays away from the others and takes care of the horses since he is considered “different” to others. Racism is the act of discriminating a person or a group of people by their race or biological differences. It is said, “The virus of

It is said from an article written by Natasha Noman, “According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 47% of hate crimes are racially motivated. Second place, a tie between religion and sexual orientation, doesn't even come close, accounting for only 19% of hate crimes, respectively,” (Noman 4). This means that hate crimes in the U.S. are highly motivated by race. Lastly, from the same article the text states, “‘Unarmed black men are seven times more likely than whites to die by police gunfire,’ the Washington Post reports on police brutality targeted at black Americans. The report estimated that an unarmed black man was shot and killed by police every nine days in 2015,” (Noman

Crooks is the only black man on the ranch and this is the era of when racism was at it’s highest. Because of this, he might fear that problems with others would occur and the fear of being misunderstood and further abused. In addition, before coming to the ranch, he might of had trouble finding a job and a place where people would accept him. This causes him to be isolated from others, making him feel lonely. For instance, in the text it states, “‘I was born right here in Southern California. My old man had a chicken ranch, ‘bout ten acres. The white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them, and some of them was pretty nice. My ‘ol man didn’t like that. I never knew till long later why he didn’t like that. But I know now.' He hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. 'There wasn’t another colored family for miles around. And now there ain’t a colored man on this ranch an’ there’s jus’ one family in Soledad,'" (Steinbeck 70). Moreover, this can be best explained in chapter 4. In chapter 4, Lennie and the other workers came into Crooks room one night, and Crooks felt violated. He felt that the outside world was invading his safe place. Whenever Lennie was explaining to Crooks about his plan of living on a ranch, Crooks for a moment forgets his status. Also, he thinks that there may be hope for him. From