Justice Paper “Justice is the bread of nations; they are always famishing for it” (Geary 187). In my book The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd many characters want to have justice in their lives, and want to be treated justly. There are two main characters in my book. Their names are Lily, and Rosaleen. Lily is a young 14 year old white girl, and Rosaleen is an African American that works as a housekeeper for Lily's family. Rosaleen faces a lot of discrimination because of her race, and is not treated justly. In order for someone to have justice one must have fairness, must be based upon socially acceptable laws, and it must uphold what is right with due consequences. The first reason Rosaleen is being treated unjustly is because she …show more content…
Socially acceptable laws would be a law that everyone believes is right and should be in effect. In parts of this book it shows the laws that the African Americans aren’t happy with and strongly disagree with. For example, “Sylvan Memorial Hospital was a low brick building with one wing for whites and one for blacks” (45). In the Hospitals, the law is that the whites have to be separated from the blacks, because that is how the whites want it. In order to have socially acceptable laws it should be agreed by both the black and white party; in this case it is only the white group of people that agreed on it. Another reason Rosaleen is treated unjustly with socially acceptable laws would be when Lily was talking about her prior beliefs about African Americans. She says “I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white” (78), Lily learned to believe this from her dad and the teachers at her school. Since it was an all white school the blacks had no say in what is wrong to teach. The teachers and parents are putting beliefs into their child's heads, and have of the beliefs are nowhere near true. This is an example injustice to Rosaleen because teaching your kid that all African Americans are not smart is not an example of socially acceptable