Racism is learned from the beginning..

A problem that I found in Maus is with Vladek being racist. This occurred on pages 98-100 of part two of Maus. Vladek is extremely upset with Francoise and how she stopped to pick up a hitchhiker, especially with the hitchhiker being colored. I have a problem with Vladek being racist because he is being extremely hypocritical. I do understand why he is upset; however, Vladek should be the most understanding person of all because of how he was treated by the Nazis due to his religion.

            I feel that this ties in with the chapter title, And here my troubles began… In the past is where he learned how to be racist. With how the Nazis treated Vladek and other Jews, this is how he learned his racist ways. Vladek is acting exactly like the Nazis, being very hostile. He even speaks in a different language than the colored man does. He has to keep an eye on the colored man through the mirror because he is worried about him stealing his food. I feel that he is worried about people stealing his food in general because of his past being in Auschwitz where people tried stealing his bread and other goods. I feel that the fact that the man was colored made it seem worse to Vladek because of his bad experience with blacks.

According to Pierre Bourdieu, Vladek had a record of this cultural experience with blacks. If you go to his writing (https://ay13.moodle.umn.edu/file.php/2183/Bourdieu%20body.pdf

), you will see how he explains bodies and culture. Bourdieu explains how the body has a memory of this experience. This means that if one had a bad experience with cars, they won’t necessary like going to the races or car shows, they will be negative about the entire situation. This is what I believed happened with Vladek. Vladek explains on page 100 of part two of Maus that when he first came to New York, he worked in a garment center and did not see any colors there. But then they were everywhere. He claimed that he put his valuables down for one second and the blacks stole his items. According to Bourdieu, since Vladek had this negative experience with blacks, he will be hostile towards every other one, in which he is. Vladek even has a name for the black that they pick up, Shvartser.

(Here the KKK resembles the Nazis)

            Here Vladek is being extremely racist and hypocritical. This entire story was about how he was treated badly by the German Nazis and how racist they were against the Jews. Even Francoise said this to Vladek, “How can you of all people be such a racist! You talk about blacks the way the Nazis talked about the Jews!” I agree completely with what Francoise said to him. Then Vladek does not think that it is a problem; he says to her that it is not even comparable with the Germans and the Jews and with the whites and blacks. I do not understand how he can think it was different. Maybe he did not live long enough to see how the whites of America treated the blacks, as their slaves; then he would have saw how it was not different. You can tell with how upset Vladek is with Francoise because of his facial expressions, his eyebrows are sharply curved down, you can tell his eyes are scrunched showing fury, and with what he says proves that he simply does not understand how he is the one being racist.

            I see this as being a problem because it may give readers a sense that being racist is okay because it is not as bad as what the Nazis did to the Jews. It may not be as bad as what the whites did to the blacks, etc. I feel that the Nazis are similar to the KKK in America, and Vladek is acting like the KKK. He is being hostile to the kind colored man, thinks that he is going to steal, etc. He treated that colored man the same way the KKK did to the blacks.Yeah he did not beat the man or kill him, but he resembled how the KKK thought of the blacks. They may think it is okay to be hostile toward someone who is different than us because it is not as bad as things had once been. This is wrong on so many levels. The way Vladek is acting toward the colored man is unacceptable. He speaks a different language in front of him, shows his emotions, gets upset about it, calling him names, and thinks that he did no wrong with how he acted. I understand that he may be more cautious because of how colored people had stole from him in the past, but to think that all colored people are evil and steal is wrong. Not every colored person is bad, in which Vladek thinks they are. Not every person is the same.