As a Caucasian man in a world where Martin Luther King has become a celebration of equality and tolerance, I have become spoiled with the delights that this age and my skin color have given me, overshadowing any kind of bigotry and discrimination that still exists. Although I have seen news reports and historical re-tellings of African Americans facing prejudice, I have never seen this situation through the eyes of these victims, until I read Song of Solomon. During its first 112 pages, the novel Song of Solomon ensnares readers, such as I, into a world where men and women are dominated by other men and women whose skin tone differs, segregating the two groups of people into the authority and the victims. Despite the fact that none of the characters
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Guitar is a part of this disturbed population, who was completely bothered by the idea that someone like him, another African American, could obtain this boom of riches and true happiness. During another meeting between him and Guitar, when this topic came up, Milkman was greatly affected by the revulsion Guitar had towards the possibility that an African American could achieve a symbol of prosperity: a beach house. A second home that was usually inhabited by the rich and powerful, meaning Caucasian Americans, was something Guitar always felt could never be achieved by himself or others like him. So, when this did happen, that a beach house had been the property of African Americans, it was bizarre for Guitar. Guitar had been used to seeing his fellow man “scrubbing floors and picking cotton” (103-104), facing every bit of bigotry, every “job of work undone, every bill unpaid, every illness, every death [that] was The [White] Man’s fault” (107-108), not enjoying riches, beach houses, and happiness. He was confused by the notion that he could ever be
Guitar is a part of this disturbed population, who was completely bothered by the idea that someone like him, another African American, could obtain this boom of riches and true happiness. During another meeting between him and Guitar, when this topic came up, Milkman was greatly affected by the revulsion Guitar had towards the possibility that an African American could achieve a symbol of prosperity: a beach house. A second home that was usually inhabited by the rich and powerful, meaning Caucasian Americans, was something Guitar always felt could never be achieved by himself or others like him. So, when this did happen, that a beach house had been the property of African Americans, it was bizarre for Guitar. Guitar had been used to seeing his fellow man “scrubbing floors and picking cotton” (103-104), facing every bit of bigotry, every “job of work undone, every bill unpaid, every illness, every death [that] was The [White] Man’s fault” (107-108), not enjoying riches, beach houses, and happiness. He was confused by the notion that he could ever be