Group D

I very much agree with Alex’s point about race and racism being social in nature. I take this story to be more of a comment on the social nature of racism in general, racism by whites against blacks being the racism the author and his intended audience have the most experience with, Mosley being African American and his audience most likely being American. I think the (mostly) white man shooting at Harold at the end says the most about Mosley’s overall point than anything else in the story. He obviously has some a lot of rage about all the white people dying, likely all his friends and family, which he directs towards Harold and likely all black people. It’s ironic that he blames black people for the plague, when white people are the ones who created it in the first place. This is a comment on the cyclical nature of racism itself, and how unfounded and pointless it is in the first place. Racism throughout history is a series of retaliations and blame games, humans trying to blame one another for their problems, and the oppressed group retaliating against an entire race. I take Mosley’s final statement; that the “world started over again” to mean that people were already repeating their mistakes, that racism was still alive and that the white man at  the end of the story was blaming black people for the mistakes of his own people.