Theme Of Racism In 'Bifocal'

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Racism has been a major factor in the human history of Canada. Despite the existence of racism, there were many great leaders who fought for the rights of others. Not only did those great leaders fight for racism, but these great leaders also tried to stop this issue. In the novel “Bifocal”, written by Deborah Ellis and Eric Walters, we are introduced to the protagonists, Jay and Haroon. The story unfolds with a school lockdown which was caused by the police thinking there was a bomb in the school. The police suspected different cultural groups in the school, and one of their first suspects were the group of Muslim students. Further on, the police suspected different groups of the school based on their culture, which was racist, and because…show more content…
The symbols in this book represent different groups, as for example, math work sheets symbolize the Chinese group in the school, who are also separated among students for bad driving and causing too many car accidents in the school parking lot. Well, in the book, the Chinese people have more than one symbol: “How do you know when your house has been robbed by Asian burglars? Steve asked […] your kid’s math homework has been done, the computer has been de-plugged, and they’re still trying to back out of the driveway” (Ellis 96). In this quotation, there are a lot of symbols personalized for Chinese people which illustrate racism. Even though in Haroon’s school, math homework and the calculator symbolize the group of Chinese students, which is not true, because not all Chinese kids are good in math. It is also racist to say that Chinese adults are bad drivers because not all of them are. Second example to prove that there are racist symbols in the book is that a Chinese kid and his parents ate a rabbit for dinner, and that is when the rabbit began to symbolize Chinese parents: “Anyways, this little Asian kid takes home the rabbit. Christmas holidays end and the kid bring back a thank-you note from his parents tanking the teacher for their Christmas meal!’” (Ellis 95). This symbol is racist for the reason that in the book every time a white kid sees a rabbit, they scream to Chinese kids, hey look…show more content…
In general, the police should not divide humans into races because in the future, races that never get accused may start illegal activities and confidentially continue, knowing that the police would accuse another race that is more likely to do it, hence encouraging the downfall of the society. The only solution is for the higher authorities to not divide humans based on skin tone, appearances, or cultures which will eliminate any racist acts similar to the incidents that occurred in Haroon’s
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