In ' The Secret life of Bees' by Sue Monk Kidd, there are many issues circling around racism. The book is set in a time period where racism was one of the major societal issues. Two characters, Lily who's white and Rosaleen who's black running away from a place where races were separated by both laws and attitudes. Lily experiences racism in ways that made her learn about life and understands prejudice in a new way.
One way Lily understands racism is through the people around her. For example, a beekeeper named Zach who's black and wants to become a lawyer despite the barriers in his way. Lily falls in love with him but Zach reminds her of their difference and their relationship would be impossible in the present world. When Zach was unjustly imprisoned, Lily finds out the horror of racial prejudice. She learns even though Zach didn't do anything wrong, he is still blamed because of his skin color. The imprisonment changed Zach and makes him even more determined to become a lawyer to fight these things. Lily experiences what it is like to be judge based solely on her skin color when people criticize her for living with African Americans. Because it is the people shes living with that treats her better than her own race.
Another way Lily experiences racism is through religion. Lily comes across a picture of a black Mary and she was shocked because Jesus' mother has always been portrayed as a white lady. "I could read her though: If Jesus' mother is black, how come we only know about the white Mary?" The issue here is how religion is shown as being racist and how all religion portrays are revolved around white portrayals. Because that religion is always portrayed as white, people automatically relates anyone related to religion is white.
In conclusion, there are many ways racism is portrayed in the story. The theme really fit well into the story because racism is one of the biggest problems at the time period. The story clearly depicts how a young white girl deals with the problem, especially when the people she cares about is black.
