Black Museum & The Bluest Eye

Right off the bat, Rolo Haynes starts to put Nish in a box, commenting on her accent and name. He also asks her is she sure she wants to come in since the tour isn’t for the faint of heart. Saying things like “heck of a trip for a girl on her own” and such is him looking at her as a female traveling alone instead of a person. He isn’t blatantly racist but he is misogynistic from the jump. Much like the times in The Bluest Eye, where a girls weren’t expected to do the things like Nish is now, Rolo Haynes thinks she isn’t the brightest and starts to weave her the tales of the items in the room. The first story of the doctor getting addicted to pain is just like the junkie on the street in Toni Morrison’s book. He was always looking for the next fix of pain at the cost of others. Dawson’s final act of reaching ultimate pain is also like when Cholly Breedlove burned down his house in his enraged state. The couple in the second story also become like the Breedloves. They begin fighting constantly and doing things just to get at one another instead of talking and working things through. Haynes made the obvious mistake of believing everything that Nish said and did. He was so trusting of her that she gained the upperhand very easily over him which brought his demise. Pecola also gets into trouble trusting Junior and gets roughed up by him. The way the masses of people flocked to the Black Museum to cause suffering to Clayton was disgusting and evil. Rolo showed no remorse for anything he had done and laughed at the mention of Clayton’s pain. This was a more outright hate against this black man versus the underlying tones of racism in The Bluest Eye. The obvious reason that the attraction to electrocute Clayton was able to pay the bills was only the money from the most hateful racists who paid top dollar to wield their power over Clayton for a bit longer than allowed. Nish’s hate fueled her act of aggression and her way of speaking out against the hate. This was also similar to Starr’s stance in The Hate U Give. She had a better approach to the hurt she felt and used her anger in better ways but nonetheless the release of hurt was similar. Nish was focused on a justice fueled by revenge whereas Starr only sought court ordered justice and peace for her community. This can also be equated to how in Run Mourner Run when Dean betrayed Ray only for the power he thought he would gain and the selfish nature that Percy used to make Dean do what he did. Percy is in a way like Rolo, feeding off of others pain. He only had one person in mind for being the winner when he ultimately should have gotten what he deserved.