The Tragedy of the Color Line

Tyler Craig

12/10/15

Professor Rawding

Critical Essay

The Tragedy of the Color Line

        There is a very obvious theme within the chapter titled The Tragedy of the Color Line in The Chalk Circle, racism. There are three different stories in this chapter. The first story is titled A Dash of Pepper in the Snow and it was written by Samuel Autman. The second story is titled “Miss Otis Regrets” and is written by Mary Elizabeth Parker. The final, and most confusing, story in this chapter is titled Signatures, written by Lyzette Wanzer. Although all of these stories are very relatable I will only be analyzing the first and third stories found in the chapter. I found this chapter very interesting because of its common theme of racism. It is very clear that racism is still a huge problem in the United States of America, just watch the news. There seems to be a different protest every day because of some form of racist act. Most of this racism is directed towards African Americans which directly relates to this chapter of The Chalk Circle because every story was about racism towards African Americans. 

        A Dash of Pepper in the Snow tells the story of a black man who moves to Salt Lake City Utah. Over the course of a few years as a writer for a newspaper in the area he experiences many racist comments. He was living in one of the whitest areas of the country so it was almost as if racism was inevitable. Autman never experiences any violent racist actions, just ignorant remarks. People who have never seen an African American man are more likely to stereotype someone based on what they have seen in the media. Overall, Autman enjoyed his time in Utah and talks about going back to visit the close friends that he made. He understood that these people did not mean any harm when making their racist remarks, he even found out that one of the remarks that bothered him the most was made by a woman who used to be married to a black man. I really think that this story shows that there can eventually be an end to racism in this country. It shows that humans are not naturally racist, but do notice that someone looks different than them. There is nothing wrong with this as everyone is different in their own ways. Autman was completely accepted into a community where he was the only African American.