It is no mystery to modern man that African-Americans have long been subjected to the prejudice of the contemptuous white man. Let's face it: the roots of racism can be traced back to the infancy of a nation which boldly claims "liberty and justice for all." Even following the alleged emancipation following the Civil War, and Civil Rights movement of the 1960's and 1970's, blacks remained inferior in all aspects of life. Thus, it would seem logical to expect African-American literature to be a tapestry of indignant diatribes against the ways of the ignorant white man. However, when we examine Alice Walker's Essay, "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens," the vengeful tone we anticipate is nowhere to be found. Rather, we encounter a text which urges all persons, black and white, to relinquish the pursuit of white contrition and realize the common bond of that which makes us human.
             In Walker's deeply personal exploration of her heritage, she laments the oppression of enslaved and oppressed black women. She notes that, despite their apparent lack of creative thought, we cannot assume that all black women did not possess some form of creativity. Thus, she asserts that the lack of black art is an indictment of the white slavery, and not an indicator of black inferiority. For how could a black slave, especially a woman, convey her most intimate thoughts to the outside world? In a sense, slavery existed for this very reason. Without art and self-expression, the slaves were molded into docile automatons. And now, Walker tells the story of their oppression, she imparts to the world what her enslaved ancestors cannot – that they, too, were artists, and that they were in essence human. The art that Walker unleashes in her writing is that art that the white man forbade. Indeed, she likens this concealed art to "exquisite butterflies trapped in an evil honey" (695). Further, she explains that so many of the stories that she writes, that we all wr...