“Recitatif” by Toni Morrison

The story written by Toni Morrison was very sympathy to me. It was about the two girls of different colors who have met at the orphan hostel; St. Bonny’s. They were the only ones who were dumped by their parents, lived at St. Bonny at the early age of eight. One day their mothers visited them. Twyla hated the way her mother acted and wore. Twyla's mother Mary is dressed inappropriately. Roberta’s mother wore a big cross on her big chest.

Eight years later, Twyla and Roberta meet again at Twyla’s workplace; Howard Johnson. Roberta was married to a rich man who is IBM executive and Twyla was married to a firefighter. Twyla is regarded as the low- middle class. While having a chat with Twyla, they both wanted to share a funny story about their lives at St. Bonny, the silly girls and Maggie. Roberta was insisting her that Maggie was black and Twyla didn’t forget a single thing. She remembered all the things. She wasn’t. But in the end, Roberta realized that she was not black. Their conversation is sympathetic.

I noticed in the story that Twyla’s mother was about to shake hands with Roberta’s mother but Roberta’s mother resisted, saying nothing. The racial issues increase, at the same time as the two characters start recollecting the incident in St. Bonaventure’s shelter where they’ve lived for a while - Maggie, kitchen worker, either was pushed down or fell down in the orchard. Roberta and Twyla used to play, talk and sleep together no matter of the skin color issues. Later, Roberta was confused about the color of Maggie because she was concerned about her disability, not her skin color. This is a never-ending story; Christmas is a sign of the birth of new relationships and experiences, but racial subjects remain the same.

This is a good start for the people who have experienced racism. It helped them to realize that socializing with other color group would help them reduce the racial issues rather living in their own houses.