Protest and Fences Racism and Racial Prejudices Essay

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Protest and Fences

Racism and racial prejudices have many forms, some more obvious than others. For people who are part of the minority population, there will be some level of bias when it comes to hiring practices or other benefits. African-Americans for example had to deal with racism, even if it was not understood by the perpetrators to be racism, in nearly every aspect of their daily lives. Some prejudicial beliefs are so accepted in the social makeup that they become ingrained in the national psyche and are not questioned as being either true or false. The biases of those in positions of authority led to situations where African-Americans were hindered and prevented from achieving their own happiness as promised by the mythos of the American Dream. President Lyndon Johnson, in a speech to Congress, declared that the government of the United States of America had pledged to each person regardless of gender or skin color to protect their civil liberties and ensure that each citizen of the United States had the same opportunities, a promise that was not being kept because of the institutionalized racism in the nation (Johnson 369). Literature as an art form is used to express the feelings and emotions of the underrepresented. In Fences, the heartbreaking oppression of the white majority forces the African-American protagonist to experience frustration and anger which culminates in his desire to separate himself and his family from the rest of the world. When he realizes that he can never escape the oppression of white society, he dies with a heart hardened by years of racism and bias inherent in the social landscape.

August Wilson's play Fences deals with the inherent suppression of people which comes with institutionalized racism.

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The most prominent example of this question has to do with the very real issue that African-Americans confront when dealing with employment. Even though the main character Troy Maxson has worked hard as a trash collector for many years, he has not been able to transcend his position into something more lucrative. Only after directly confronting his employer was Troy able to secure the chance to drive the truck. He told his boss, "Why you got the white mens driving and the colored lifting?...You think only white fellows got sense enough to drive a truck" (Wilson 9). The simple task of driving the trash truck had been the job of white men alone, despite the fact that many African-Americans were able to drive and many could do so with better skill than white men. Ability simply did not come into the equation. When Troy asks his boss these questions, the reader understands that the boss had no reason to deny Troy's request other than race and further that the boss had more than likely never even considered hiring a black truck driver. It was not that he was intentionally keeping African-Americans in subservient positions, but that so ingrained was the notion of inferiority that it never occurred to him to offer the position to an African-American man.

Troy has had to deal with racism his entire life, particularly as an adult. His true passion in life was baseball, but he was not able to move beyond the Negro League and thus could not support his family through the game. Since Troy's youth, the….....

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