If you want one book to explain the way that race functions in America, you could do a lot worse than Roots. There's a reason this thing's so famous, after all.
Beginning in Africa, where a young Kunta Kinte is told that his blackness is beautiful, the novel sees its protagonist hold on this sense of pride even after being kidnapped and brought to a country where he's told the exact opposite. Both us as readers and Kunta as a character learn a lot about how racism was systematically employed to subjugate black people in America—and how many of those systems still exist today.
Questions About Race
- Is race depicted as a binary in Roots? Explain your answer.
- What distinguishes Ol' George from other white people in the novel?
- How is colorism depicted in the novel?
- Why are black women particularly affected by racism in the novel?
Chew on This
Roots portrays race as non-binary, as we see a million subtleties that complicate that simple understanding.
In the novel, we frequently see absurd claims about race used to justify the existence of slavery to people who on their face should be morally opposed to it.