it existed in a democratic country meant that it required some.
extraordinary rationale to reconcile it with the prevailing values of the.
nation. Racism was an obvious response, whose effects were still felt more.
than a century after its abolition (Sowell 3).
The Models (Manners and Customs, Historical and Empirical Data) of.
representation in the real world of The Color Purple was made clear when we.
discover that Celie's biological father was lynched for being a prosperous.
storekeeper.
"And as he (the father) did so well farming and everything he turned his.
hand to prospered, he decided to open a store, and try his luck selling dry.
goods as well. Well, his store did so well that he talked his two brothers.
into helping him run it. . . . Then the white merchants began to get.
together and complain that his store was taking all the black business away.
from them. . . . This would not do"(Walker 180).
The store the black men owned took the business away from the white men,.
who then interfered with the free market (really the white market) by.
lynching their black competitors. Class relations, in this instance, are.
shown to motivate lynching. Lynching was the act of violence white men.
performed to invoke the context of black inferiority and sub-humanity to.
the victim, exposing the reality of the economic bases of racial oppression.
(Berlant 217). The black individual served as a figure of racial "justice".
for whites; the black individual was an economic appendage reduced to the.
embodiment of his or her alienation (Berlant 224). "Color" in the southern.
U.S. during the early 1900s was synonymous with inferiority.
When discussing the economic alternative world illustrated in The Color.
Purple Celie situates herself firmly in the family's entrepreneurial.
tradition; she runs her business successfully. Where her father and uncles.
were lynched for presuming the rights of full American citizens, Celie is.
ironically rewarded for following in her family's entrepreneurial interests.