# data[].attributes.body
The Song of Solomon
By Toni Morrison

# data[].attributes.body
Hagar comes to hate her hair and dark skin because they mark her as a black woman. She envies Lena and Corinthians, and other light-skinned black women, because they’re not so obviously African; indeed, she dies of grief because she realizes that she’ll never be able to look as light-skinned as the women she thinks Milkman likes.

# data[].attributes.body
In the book Racism is very deeply rooted in African Americans themselves. It can cause divides between them that can lead to hating of their own skin color. Sometimes the reason is social class and stature in the black community. If a black person is more educated than the other, the less educated one may feel like the more educated one can't relate to them, therefore they would even go as far as to call them white. Vice versa the more educated black person may feel a sense of superiority to the other less educated people which leads them to ostracise each other. Instead of being unified by their mutual characteristics such as skin color, instead their is a divide that is created

# data[].attributes.body
“There is a society. It’s made up of a few men who are willing to take some risks. They don’t initiate anything; they don’t even choose. They are as indifferent as rain. But when a Negro child, Negro woman, or Negro man is killed by whites and nothing is done about it by their law and their courts, this society selects a similar victim at random, and they execute him or her in a similar manner if they can. If the Negro was hanged, they hang; if a Negro was burnt, they burn; raped and murdered, they rape and murder."

# data[].attributes.body
Guitar's character shows another type of racism takes place in the book. Hagar and Macon try to be as white as possible, but Guitar responds to whiteness by despising it altogether. Ever since his father was killed in a white-owned sawmill, he has refused to accept any sympathy from the white community. He regards all white people, beginning with the sawmill owner, as complicit in the murder of black people. Guitar joins the Seven Days, and with them he begins to murder white people in retaliation for black murders in the area. Though most of the white people he kills weren’t immediately involved in crimes against black people, Guitar nonetheless considers them racists who deserve to die. This proves that racism affected him in a different way than the others, but nonetheless affected him very deeply.

# data[].attributes.body
Race is a large factor in peoples lives in the story. It affects how all the character talk, think, and behave in different ways.

# data[].attributes.body
There are almost no white characters in the book. White racism, directed at African Americans, is a real thing in the novel, but it’s an offstage presence, which affects how the black characters talk, think, and behave.

# data[].attributes.body
Macon Dead is often shown as an antagonist on the story due to his selfish manor and greedy ways. He is always trying to get money out of things and people, and has no regard for kindness or generosity. One way he shows this off is by driving his nice car every sunday around town with his family. The author describes his car and the ride in great detail, and the feelings of each person riding in the car. His car is clean, and there is nothing that typically would be considered what a poor person may have. This shows that Macon Dead puts a lot of effort into his appearance, he doesn't want to seem like the other people in his neighborhood. He is trying to show other that he isn't a stereotype of what a black person at the time would be. His fear of being a stereotype influences who he is because he doesn't want to be considered the typical black man.

# data[].attributes.body
In the novel Morrisons message she wanted to give the reader is that the true antidote to racism isn’t more violence and prejudice, as Guitar thinks.The antidote is love for yourself, and your skin color. The necessary precursor to love for other people. To show this Milkman transformed from a spoiled child, to a mature, loving man. This symbolizes an alternative to the racism from whites that blacks endure, and the internalized racism of many black people.

# data[].attributes.body
They looked at his skin and saw it was as black as theirs, but they knew he had the heart of the white men who came to pick them up in the trucks when they needed anonymous, faceless laborers