Internalized Racism

Internalized racism is one of the largest concepts throughout this novel, highlighted most through the  differences in perception through both races that surface. When the narrator takes up the job of driving Mr. Norton nearby the college and he partakes interest in Trueblood's log cabin, the epitome of internalized racism begins to arise. In the black community, one that is constantly frowned upon by whites, when an unlawful act is committed within it causes an ever deeper hole to climb out of almost causing the race to disassociate with one of their own. By having sex with his daughter, Trueblood caused an added struggle to the fight for equality and acceptance the black community already faced at the time. Trueblood's curiosity about why the white men keep offering him money or work exposes the crave for supremacy in the story. The white people are paying him for basically lowering the black community and making the white community look better because they had not experienced the negative impact. "How can he tell this to white men, I thought, when he knows they'll say that all Negroes do such things?" (58) The shame Trueblood brings benefits the white man and makes the black community look like 'savages' just as society wants them to be perceived, this is why the college students don't associate with Trueblood, because, while their trying to prove their worth, he is causing them to fall right back into the perception that they need to be controlled or should have never been able to assimilate with the white population. Mr. Norton reestablishes this disfigured concept when after saying how disgraceful Trueblood's act was, gives him money just like the countless other rich white men that pass his way.
http://racerelations.about.com/od/understandingrac1/a/internalizedracism.htm