Revolt of the Evil Fairies, by Ted Poston

Revolt of the Evil Fairies

discrimination

     

     In “Revolt of the Evil Fairies” by Ted Poston. The main character wants the part of Prince Charming for the school play, but he can’t get it, because he has darker skin. The main theme in this book is discrimination, no one cares about anyone’s personality, only their complexion.

     The first example of discrimination is towards the beginning of the story when the main character says, “The good fairies wore white costumes and the evil fairies black. And strangely enough most of the good fairies turned out to be extremely light in complexion.” This quote shows that there is discrimination within races. Even though all of the children and the teachers in The Booker T Washington Grammar School were African American they recreated the unfairness they felt in the rest of the world inside their own community. This is not fair, no one has a chance at being successful, if their skin is dark.

     The teachers didn’t actually care about talent when casting the role of Prince Charming, they only paid attention to skin color. In the middle of the passage it is explained that, “Roger was not only dumb; he stuttered. But he was enough to pass for white, and apparently that was sufficient.” I think that this is unfair, because the main character got good grades, and practiced as much as he possibly could for the part of Prince Charming. But the teachers didn’t care about his hard work. This also shows how different things are now, if a kid in this time period got bad grades, they probably wouldn’t get a big part in the school play, no matter how they looked.

       My last example of discrimination in Revolt of the Evil Fairies by Ted Poston is when the author talks about the community. “The yallers had the best of everything. They had the most teaching jobs in Booker T Washington Colored Grammar School. They were the negro doctors, the lawyers, the insurance men.”

This shows that this discrimination doesn’t only take place in the school. I know that things like this in schools can be part of bullying, but this proves that discrimination goes through the whole african american community. The fact that people can be racist amongst their own race is ridiculous. It shows us that some people need to discriminate others in order to feel of value, because in their mind, compared to others they are.

     In conclusion discrimination is the theme of Revolt of the Evil Fairies by Ted Poston. Discrimination takes place even where you don’t expect it. I find it interesting and upsetting that people can feel so awful about the way things are working in the world around them that they need to create the same concept within their own people, just so they can feel better about themselves. Imagine how much discrimination it would take for you to create exactly what’s making you upset, again with your own people.