Natasa Misic -- Journal Entry 8

Natasa Misic

Journal Entry 8

Sunflower—theme (racism)

I believe the most common used theme throughout the first eight chapters of the Secret Life of Bee’s is race. Kidd covers a wide range of racism that of course includes common stereotypes for black and white people but as well as the reverse role of black people not liking white people.

The book begins with Rosaleen, a black woman, being the mother figure to a white girl. They are best friends yet it shows throughout the book that Rosaleen is not accepted by society like Lily is because her skin color. Lily doesn’t realize she is racist until she starts to learn that there are smart and educated black people in the society. She had never thought of a doctor or a lawyer being black until she met the Calendar sisters and Zach who opened her eyes to different perspectives.

After some time Lily starts to like Zach who is black. She finds herself very drawn and attracted to him. She never thought that black boys had attractive features such as their noses but for some reason she liked Zach. Perhaps because they had many common interests and both dreams of being successful. Lily quickly realized that even though she likes Zach society will never accept that and she simply could not be with him.

After they both realized their attraction to one another Zach and Lily knew that it couldn’t work out because their skin colors. Zach told her: “Lily, I like you better than any girl I’ve ever known, but you have to understand, there are people who would kill boys like me for even looking at girls like you” (135). It’s sad to hear this but it is the truth and after a long time in today’s society we still tend to have this problem in society even though it is much more common to see two different races dating.

Even though racism during this time is primarily against black people Lily experienced racism against her as well. Zach was shocked that she was white when he first met her working for August. Also June to this point in the book has still not warmed up to Lily. She doesn’t like Lily because she is white and feels that she should not be in their home. The biggest conflict between them is when June would not allow Lily to touch the “black” statue of Mary. It was so dramatic that Lily fainted.

Lily realizes throughout the first eight chapters that even she is racist but is overcoming it daily. She finally gets so fed up with racism that she starts to question how is it possible that skin pigment is such a big deal and believes that God should have made all humans the same skin pigment so that the world would be at peace.