Easy gets bullied by the girl's friends because they think that he is going to hurt the girl. Easy says "I noticed a couple of the others had picked up sticks. They moved in around me, forcing my back against the rail" (100). This conveys Easy has to deal constantly with racial stereotypes without even hurting anyone in the past. However, he has to contain himself from retaliating the other guys because he knows that it could cause him severe problems. The situation that Easy goes through is still affecting African American people nowadays when they fight against the idea that they are dangerous people.
In addition to Easy's importance in portraying racism, he sees himself forced to accept a job that he does not want just to keep his house. Easy suffers from inequality even at the work where he gets fired from. The way black people are treated at work is even compared with slavery when Easy says, "Benny didn't care about what I had to say. He needed all his children to kneel down and let him be the boss. He wasn't a businessman, he was a plantation boss; a slaver" (111). The fact that Benny, Easy's ex boss, is white makes him feel powerful and with the right of controlling his workers lives just because he thinks they are inferior to him. Because Benny is not a business man, a person who treats his employees with respect and sees them as persons rather than as objects, Easy gets fired from his job and makes the desperate decision of working for DeWitt. This changes his life bringing him insecurity and instability. This not only shows how black people were treated 67 years ago, but also how they are treated nowadays: the difficult times they have to pass through, and the iniquities that closed-minded people perpetuate on people of color.
Mosley also uses Easy as a way to talk about important people that have made difference in America but never appeared in books due to racism.