Racism in 'The Neighbor' by Russel Banks

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or worth more to another, in Russel Banks short story, The Neighbor (1975), is racism showed in a more low-key and deferent way. It is not directly racism, but more hidden racism, for example when the family gets uttered from the community because they are deferent.

If you look at line 40-41 on page 165, is there a very good example on the 3rd person narrator, "him as lie walked past his neighbor's house, his mind reeling with delight as he imagined his wife in her frail-wheeled sulky riding….." A 3rd person narrator, is a narrator there do not describe the feelings, all the deferent characters have. The narrator is objective and is not allowed to talk about feelings, the narrator does not have a connection to the deferent characters, because it has to be objective. The narrator only talks about, the things he/she is seeing, and NOT the feelings. In the excerpt above, the narrator is only telling us about what is going on and not have he is feeling.

As the thesis statement says, there is hidden racism, you can see that on page 164 line 3-7,

"He was a black man in his fifties, she a white woman the same age, his children (from a previous marriage) were black, her children (also from a previous marriage) were white. Everyone else in town was white also. Many of them had never seen a black man before this one." When you just read it, nothing jumps up in your eyes, it is hidden racism, so it is also hidden in the short story. For example, in the last bit of the excerpt,"….never seen a black man before this one" there is some hidden racism because the narrator does not say, "….never seen a black man before." But the narrator is adding "this one", that is very condescending just to say "this one" about a human being. Also, the fact that he and his kids are the only Afro-American in the city, shows us that it is not "normal", and if we start to get this thought every time we see an Afro-American, we will think that it is not "normal" and will start to hate the Afro-American people and there will come a lot more racism.