Race and Racism

The issue of race and racism is central to the story. Twyla's first response to rooming with Ro-berta at St. Bonny's is to feel sick to her stomach. "It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the morning—it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race." Throughout the story Twyla and Ro-berta's friendship is inhibited by this sense of an uncrossable racial divide, played out against the background of national racial tensions such as the busing crisis. Racial conflicts provide the main turning points in the story's plot. At no point, however, does Morrison disclose which girl is black and which is white. She offers socially and historically specific descriptions in order to flesh out her characterizations of Twyla and Roberta, and some of these descriptions may lead...