A Theme of Racism in the Kite Runner

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races should remain segregated and apart from one another. Racism has existed throughout human history. It means that the hatred of one person by another or the belief that another person is less than human because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or another factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person. It has influence wars, slavery, the formation of nation and legal codes. The Amir figure who acts as the main narrator in the story as well as the central figure attempts to disguise repression with a character from the low-ranking social strata of Hazara named Hassan. Amir is a Pashtun boy who lives in luxury and facilities because his father is one of the richest men in their district to live, Wazir Akhbar Khan in Kabul. In his daily life, Amir was always accompanied and served by the son of his servant Ali named Hassan. However, Hassan tried hard to please Amir. In the deep down, Amir never considered Hassan as a friend. Hassan was only a servant for him. "The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either" or in another quote: "But he’s not my friend! I almost blurted. It's my servant! Had I really thought that? Of course I have no. I treated Hassan well, just like a friend, better even, more like a brother. But if so, then why, when Baba's friends came to visit with their kids, did I never include Hassan in our games? Why did I play with Hassan only when no one else was around? The quotation above shows that Amir could never regard Hassan as equal to himself. There will always be differences and distances that Amir and society create. In this novel there is one character that hold grudges and be racial to Hassan, He is Assef. He really hated to Hassan because he throw Assef with slingshot and because Hassan is Hazara people. Here, there is one incident that interested my heart. The incident happened when Hassan chased after Kite’s opponent that broke up. On the road, he met Assef and his friends. Assef asked the kite for himself but Hassan didn’t give it, then Assef rape him in there. From the story above we can conclude that racism asserts that blood is a marker of ethnic-national identity.

Cite this page