Perfect Humans

Racism has played a big role in our country since it was founded. Although we've made many strides since then, we unfortunately still have a long way to go. Throughout the novel Maus, the issue of racism comes up many times. The first instance of racism in the novel that I'd like to address is when Art accuses Vladek of becoming like the "racist caricature of the miserly old Jew (Spiegelman 133)." It shows how Art is afraid that Vladek will become a Jewish stereotype, and be a target for racists. But what he didn't really know was that Vladek was racist himself. He was surprised that, after all the racism his father went through, he could still look at another race and think less of them. When Francoise decides to pick up a black hitchhiker, Vladek is astonished and can't help looking back to make sure he didn't steal any of his groceries. Seeing this, Francoise is fuming, saying that it's crazy how someone who went through so much racism could be such a racist himself. This is an honest opinion, one that I agree with myself. This example shows that although Vladek has survived the worst of the Holocaust, it doesn't automatically mean that he isn't still influenced with perspectives of other groups. I ended up looking more into this, and I came across an interesting article. It discussed Vladek's racism in the novel and it mentioned a point that seemed really interesting to me. The author explained how, since Vladek and other Holocaust survivors have been through so much, the more negative factors are often glazed over. This is probably why I was so surprised when I found out about Vladek's racism, because I tended to judge him as the perfect human since he had gone through so much.