How Cookie and Me Dealt Racism and How It Affected the Rights of African-Americans

How Cookie and Me Dealt Racism and how it Affected the Rights of African-Americans.

The Novel Cookie and Me written by Mary Jane Ryals was a riveting story of friction and strife of the segregated city of Tallahassee, FL in the controversial 1960's. There are numerous topics I could bring up that the book touched on concerning relations between Whites and African Americans. One main topic from the book is how it dealt with the racism that affected the rights of the African-American population in this period of time i.e Cookie. And how these African-Americans dealt with, and overcame these hardships of that time and even today. By instituting boycotts, sit-ins, and other non-violent demonstrations to over time get equal treatment from whites.

If you read the book you know Cookie and Me is about a white girl (Rayann) and a black girl (Cookie) having an interracial friendship, and how it affects both of their lives. Something that at that time was almost unheard of and frowned upon. It was something that rarely happened back then, and when it did it was kept under wraps without the knowledge of anybody else besides the two people engaging in the friendship. But what kept friendships like this from being out in the open, and being the norm? The answer to that question is racism, whose dictionary definition is, "a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others." (Racism) Racism has been the sole reason for races to hate each other for centuries. It was part of the validation for years of slavery and the reason blacks and whites haven't gotten along since the abolition of slavery. The main type of racism occurs from whites towards blacks, but at the same time there is racism from blacks to whites, because of what blacks have had to deal with. Within Cookie and Me we see instances of racism from the other kids in the story to Cookie. For instance when the boys push Cookie off the bus because they don't want a black person on their bus is a prime example. The racism against her from the other kids on the bus kept her from having the right to ride the bus, which in turn possibly could have made her miss school, or have to walk to school.

The public racism has occurred in history and it was known as segregation. Jim Crow laws, as they were called in the south were a means of "separate but equal" treatment for blacks and whites. Blacks couldn't eat in the same restaurants; sleep in the same hotel, live in the same neighborhood, or even go to the same schools as whites. All of us knowing these facilities were not equal with whites having the upper hand. After years of unfair treatment because of segregation, blacks decided to do something about it. They started coming together and protesting the white rule. Instances such as the Tallahassee boycott of the 1956 slowly lead to major change in the city's transit system. The boycott was enticed after the treatment of two FAMU student; Wilhemina Jakes and Carrie Patterson after they