Nelson Mandela once said, "No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite”. Racism can often be defined as discrimination or hatred against a group of people based on the color of their skin. As an African American family visits the capital while on vacation. Lorde realizes that racism is bigger than she thinks when she has her first racist experience, which shows that discrimination is overridden by equality even in a free country.
Audre, a little girl who is excited to travel to the capital with her family as a graduation present, finds out that what she
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“I was squinting because I was in that silent agony that characterized all of my childhood summers… my dilated and vulnerable eyes exposed to the summer brightness” (241). Audre Lorde uses the agony of her childhood as a symbol of how she viewed the trip to Washington with her family. If she had have grown up in a different neighborhood, with different parents, or even if she had grown up white, she would have experienced the trip differently in a sense that she would be treated with respect wherever she went. The late 1940’s had several groups struggling to find a way to fit in. “Normal” in 1947 was being white. Objects, including humans were white. For example, the White House, the Capitol building, and the Washington Monument. Lorde recognizes the pattern of bias towards the light shaded color. “Even the pavement on the streets was a shade lighter in color than back home”(242). Lorde explains how everything around her in Washington,