Fighting Oppression: Racism in Angie Thomas’ On the Come Up

Abstract

This study aims to describe racism and the struggle of the characters to face racism in the novel On the Come Up (2019) by Angie Thomas. The writer used critical race theory from Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic (2001) to analyze the issue. The method used in this study was qualitative method presented in the form of essay. Based on the analysis there are some tenets that describe racism in the novel. The result of this study showed that there are five tenets of critical race theory namely, everyday racism as described by black people who always get discriminated against, interest convergence as described by white people who take advantage of black people for material gain, social construction as described through the bad prejudices that black people get, intersectionality as described through the characters who get many forms of oppression at once because of their identities, and voice of color as described through black people’s voices relate to the experience of racism. Moreover, this study showed various struggles and actions of the characters in facing the tenets of racism in critical race theory such as opposed the discrimination, against white people who took advantage of them, against the bad prejudice they get, and struggling for a place free from racism and other forms of oppression..

Keywords: racism, critical race theory, struggle, oppression