Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo

     This week, I read the book Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo. Blonde Roots is basically pursuing the question, "what would happen if slavery was the other way around, if white people were enslaved by black people?" In the book, the main character, Doris, was enslaved when she was eleven years old, and brought to Africa, or as they call it, Aphrika. She is given a slave name, Omorenomwara, and when she is in her mid-thirties, she attempts escape. The story follows her as she attempts to get back to England, where she was born.

      Blonde Roots completely reverses the stereotypes and labels that black slaves were given in the 1700s and 1800s. White (or 'whyte') people are called 'wiggers,' and the white women compare themselves to the black (or 'blak') women, who call the whyte women ugly for being skinny and pale. While on her journey to Aphrika, Doris is placed on a ship in the middle passage, where women are raped and men are killed. Once she arrives, she is auctioned off and placed in a home where she is told to the companion of a blak little girl, who treats her like she is lesser because she is whyte.

     If you switch around the names 'black' and 'white', the result is exactly the same despite skin color: racism. I think Evaristo was trying to show this when she wrote the novel; it would be very easy to switch around the race roles and have white people be enslaved.