Student Question
What assumptions does Grayson make about Black people in Maniac Magee, and why might he have remained unaware of their inaccuracy?
Quick answer:
One of the assumptions that Grayson makes about Black people is that they don't eat mashed potatoes. He also seems to think that they don't use toothbrushes. Grayson has gone so long without knowing his assumptions about Black people aren't true because he's never actually met any of them in the racially segregated town of Two Mills.
The character of Earl Grayson in Maniac Magee is a living embodiment of the ignorance and incomprehension that lies at the heart of race relations in the racially segregated town of Two Mills.
Not long after he meets a starving Maniac, Grayson takes him to a local diner for lunch. It is there that the old white man, an illiterate caretaker at the local zoo, reveals his astonishing ignorance about black people.
While Maniac is eating his dessert, Grayson suddenly asks him if Black people eat mashed potatoes. This is a totally ridiculous question, but it's one we might expect from somehow who's clearly never met a Black person in his whole life.
Grayson then goes on to ask Maniac if Black people use toothbrushes, which, if anything, is an even more ridiculous and offensive question. Grayson further compounds his ignorance by expressing shock that Maniac drank from the same glass as the Beales, the African American family with whom he'd been staying until recently.
Grayson must take ownership of his racial prejudices and highly offensive assumptions. To a large extent, though, he's a product of a racially segregated environment in which the residents of Two Mills live in different areas of town according to their race.
Inevitably, this fosters a considerable degree of mutual ignorance and incomprehension. As Black people and white people almost never meet, they hardly know anything about each other. Although there surely can't be that many people in town quite as ignorant or as prejudiced as Earl Grayson.
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