Their Eyes Were Watching God 1

When Janie returns to her home, it seems as if she is treated the same by the whites as well as the blacks. Obviously the whites were racist to her due to her high levels of melanin, while the black females thought her body seemed too sexual, due to the size of her hips and breasts. It's ironic that she should be ostracized from both groups, it just points out the level of despair of the need one had to reassure themselves in the south. I think Janie was talked about because the other black women had to have that feeling that they were better than somebody else. As it was pointed out in the narrative, black women were at the bottom  of the social pyramid at that time for being black and for female. When it comes down to it, she was rejected for her looks by whites and blacks. These polar groups of people didn't have much on common then, but they both had discriminated against people on the basis of their looks.