Racism In Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry

In the book “Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry” by Mildred Taylor, it is about a black family living in Mississippi in 1933. The main character Cassie is 9 years old and is starting to discover how she gets treated, and also how she is supposed to treat other people. In chapter 5, Cassie shows her innocence to racism and is starting to realize that she isn’t treated fairly. Big Ma brings Cassie, her older brother Stacey, and Stacey’s friend, T.J., to Strawberry, Mississippi. In Strawberry, There are many examples where Cassie makes “mistakes”, which shows how innocent Cassie is to racism. “Innocence” means “lack of guile or corruption”. Throughout chapter 5, Cassie shows a lack of knowledge towards racism in many obvious examples.

The first example

Lillian Jean. Cassie wasn’t looking where she was going, and accidentally bumped into Ms. Lillian Jean. Ms. Lillian told Cassie to apologize. “I did not feel like messing with Lillian Jean. I had other things on my mind. 'Okay, I said, starting past,' I'm sorry.”(113). Then after Cassie apologized, Ms. Lillian Jean asked her to step into the road. Cassie said “You crazy?'”(113). Then Ms. Lillian Jean responded, “May- be that way you won't be bumping into decent white folks with your little nasty self.”(114). Cassie was sick of getting insulted. Instead of listening to Ms. Lillian Jean, she told her “if you're so afraid of get- ting bumped, walk down there yourself.”(114). Then Cassie kept walking. Ms. Lillian Jean wasn’t satisfied, so she got into her way again. “she reached for my arm and attempted to push me off the sidewalk. I braced myself and swept my arm backward, out of Lillian Jean's reach. But someone caught it from behind, painfully twisting it, and shoved me off the sidewalk into the road. I landed bottom first on the ground. Mr. Simms glared down at me. 'When my gal Lillian Jean says for you to get yo'self off the sidewalk, you get, you hear!'”(114). Then Big Ma found Cassie and wanted to take her home, but Mr.Simms first made Cassie apologize. “Big Ma gazed down at me fear in her eyes, then back at the growing crowd….'Go on, child ... apologize.' 'But, Big Ma - Her voice

There were many examples where Cassie didn’t make the right choice about what to say and do. Cassie thought that she can talk back to white people, but she isn’t supposed to. Most black people know their rights, how they get treated and how they should treat other people, but Cassie doesn’t. This chapter revealed that she didn’t know that because she acted as if everyone had equal rights. Cassie needs to learn about her rights, because she could get into a lot of trouble if she says something to the wrong person. Overall, this chapter had some very good examples on how racist that time used to be, and also on how Cassie doesn’t know much about racism, but because of her actions, is starting to