ttar baby

Disco, glitter glam and racial tension. The seventy’s were a rocking good time, but what lay beneath the civil rights movement? It was a crucial time for American society. Along with the equality of the civil rights movement also came a backlash of uncertainty for all Ethnicity’s. In Toni Morrison’s novel, “Tar Baby,” she rips apart racial tension and social assimilation, while exposing the causes without pushing solutions. She leaves up to the reader to decipher a solution for themselves. She puts an educated, fair skinned model right in the middle of the racial battle. Jadine is the central catalyst between the races but she is not a “race traitor.” She is an educated, professional woman but does it matter if she’s also black?
Toni Morrison doesn’t give us much of a background on Jadine. All we know is that she was orphaned at the ripe old age of twelve and that she came to the island to live with her aunt Ondine and her uncle Sydney who are in servi...