She highlights the poverty and hardship suffered by black families who remain the poorest ethnic group in America today. The contention is raised as to how influential society is upon a person and how much of an impression those opinions have on any individual. Morrison shows the reader how an impression of a person or thing can be formed but can be twisted by the influence of the society, which surrounds it, in this way the idea can be wholly wrong. In a similar way Bledsoe, in Invisible Man, gives his pupils an impression of the world as he sees it, the reality is that the white race, of the time, would allow a black into the sphere if they were able and willing to adhere to the rules laid out for the Negro by the white oppressor.
The black population had been kept separate from the white in America since they had first entered the country. As a result of this the African American made a culture of their own, the Slaves had been brought to America from many different areas of Africa and as such from many diverse .
and individual tribes. Each slave was different from the other in looks, language and culture, they each brought with them their own cultural baggage. The black population formed a culture of its own, a mix of each other cultures and the American culture into which they had been thrown, and after generations a set of beliefs based upon this emerged. These American-Blacks had their own folklore, religion and moral code based upon centuries of subjugation and reliance upon each other. The saying: If you"re black, stay back; if you"re brown, stick around; if you"re white, you"re alright. Was a common saying amongst Negroes. Ralph Ellison himself said " in my book this sort of thing was merged with the meanings .
which blackness and light have long had in Western mythology: evil and goodness, ignorance and knowledge, and so on." (Ralph Ellison, "The Art of Fiction: An Interview").
