Racism in Charlotte’s Web

            In Charlotte’s Web on page 28 E.B. White takes the opportunity to teach a lesson.  “Pigs mean less than nothing to me.” A lamb states this to Wilbur and he doesn’t understand why the lamb would say such a thing.  The lambs won’t play with Wilbur because he looks different, the lamb doesn’t know much about Wilbur’s personality and that shows racism.  E.B. White hides racism in the book, this example of racism happens in a conversation between a lamb and Wilbur.  E.B. White hides racism in the book because the word has a very negative feel.  He creates this example hoping that the readers will see that treating others poorly because they are different is wrong and can hurt someone.  He doesn’t want to show them racism between two people because they might worry it could happen to them.  He wants to show them with animals and with a character they care very much about so they won’t do it. 

            A first impression of a lamb is that it would be sweat, soft and cuddly and a first impression of a pig is it’s dirty and dumb.  So you think the lamb wouldn’t be mean to anything even a pig and a dirty, dumb people wouldn’t recognize that someone was being to it.  Wilbur’s response though is very intelligent.  Wilbur says “If there were something that was less than nothing, it would be something- even though it’s just a very little bit of nothing.”  This shows that anyone can be mean and anyone could get hurt by actions and words.

            I like the way E.B. White approached the subject of racism in Charlotte’s Web.  Sometimes when people see the word racism they get turned off by the topic and don’t want their kids knowing about it.  E.B. White though successfully gets the point across without mentioning racism.  It may also open up the discussion of racism, but the kids won’t know it as racism, for some families.