Raymond's mother, Miss Pearl, does not even speak to Anne's mother and treats her horribly because she thinks she is better then Anne's mother since she is only half black. Anne's mother cries every night because they don't accept her, yet Anne is never told why their family isn't accepted by Miss Pearl. Anne's mother, when asked, never explains why Miss Pearl's acceptance is so important to her, nor does she tell Anne what makes their family better than her own. Anne is left to hypothesize on her own that somehow being "yellow" makes them in a high class than blacks. .
Through her experiences in the working world Anne learns that not all white people have the same view of blacks. When Anne works for Ms. Claiborne, she is treated respectfully and is even invited to eat dinner with the family one evening. When Anne's mother discovers that she was asked to eat with the Claibornes, she becomes angry and says that Ms. Claiborne "ruined" her and asks, "What you gotta talk about with them white folks?" (Moody 50). This goes to show that Anne's mother is the type of person who is being as stereotypical as most southern whites were at the time, which did not help the problem of racism but instead encouraged it. On the other hand when Anne works for Linda Jean, her mother Mrs. Burke is terribly white-supremacist and is quite mean to Anne; always putting her down. Through this working experience Anne learns that not all whites think they are better than blacks but many do and she doesn't feel the ones who do think they are better have any right to be. This realization develops her interest in wanting to fight for African American rights later in her life.
An important event that affects Anne's outlook on life is the murder of a young black boy, named Emmett Till, by a group of white men because he had whistled at a white woman. Anne comments, .
"Up until his death, I had heard of Negroes found floating in a river or dead somewhere with their bodies riddled with bullets.
