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Secret Life Of Bees Prejudice Quotes

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The theme of racial prejudice and injustice, is threaded throughout the course of Lily’s journey in The Secret Life of Bees. Racism is a type of prejudice, which in a nutshell, is basically a prejudgment based on generalizations and flawed reasoning, targeting a particular race. In other words, racial prejudice can lead to discrimination, stereotyping, irrational hatred, or suspicion, based on decisions before the facts were known. Lily exemplifies many of the white community’s prejudices about black people. Lily finds herself to possess prejudice at times, due to the influence created by the whites around her. For the Caucasians in the book, it’s almost natural for them to think that black people have lower morals, lower IQ, less civilized …show more content…

Lily spots the shelf of honey jars in a store, with a black Mary pictured on them. “I pointed to the honey jars. 'Where did you get those?’ He thought the tone of shock in my voice was really consternation. 'I know what you mean. A lot of folks won't buy it 'cause it's got the Virgin Mary pictured as a colored woman.” (Kidd 64) In this quote, Lily is actually taken by surprise when she finds out that the black Mary on the honey jar was identical to the picture of Mary she had. Naturally, the store owner assumed she was shocked because of the fact that there was a colored woman on the jar; he jumps straight to a prejudiced …show more content…

“T. Ray did not think colored women were smart...I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white… all I could think was August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised by this. That's what let me know I had some prejudice buried inside me.” (Kidd 78) Caucasian people such as T. Ray are always reckoning that colored people lack the same degree of intelligence or cultivation as Caucasians, and this prejudice thought goes against the fact that colored people can be just as educated as whites. This bias coming from Lily’s father is impacting her and even though Lily never tries to be prejudiced on purpose, she admits that she has a hint of prejudice in her. After spending time with colored people, Lily realizes she had been making flawed assumptions about how blacks weren’t as educated as

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The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a novel about Lily, who runs away from home to Tiburon, after she and Rosaleen, her “stand-in mom” were arrested. Lily killed her mother at a young age, and she feels guilty about it. When Lily and Rosaleen are at Tiburon, Lily finds a picture of The Black Madonna at a store, which was the same picture that Lily’s mom had. This leads them to a pink house, where they meet August, June, and May. August is the oldest and is seen as the leader of the house. Before each chapter of the novel, there is a quote.

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325 Words | 2 Pages

An important idea of The Secret Life of Bees is racism. Not only does Lily, the main character, struggle with judging others, but Rosaleen has to deal with living in a racist society. For instance, when Rosaleen goes to town in order to register to vote, a few men in town don’t agree with her right to vote. They try to stop her, eventually hitting her over the head and knocking her out. “They lunged at her, and everything started to spin… then Rosaleen lay sprawled on the ground, pinned, twisting her fingers around clumps of grass” (33).

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1119 Words | 5 Pages

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In the essay, “A Genealogy of Modern Racism”, the author Dr. Cornel West discusses racism in depth, while conveying why whites feel this sense of superiority. We learn through his discussion that whites have been forced to treat black harshly due to the knowledge that was given to them about the aesthetics of beauty and civility. This knowledge that was bestowed on the whites in the modern West, taught them that they were superior to all races tat did not emulate the norms of whites. According to Dr. West the very idea that blacks were even human beings is a concept that was a “relatively new discovery of the modern West”, and that equality of beauty, culture, and intellect in blacks remains problematic and controversial in intellectual circles

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1440 Words | 6 Pages

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