"It's bad bein' strange niggers wid white folks. Everybody is aginst yuh" (Hurston 172).
The theme of race has been prevalent throughout the novel, but the theme of racism is really called into attention at the end of the novel. Tea Cake and the other men are required to separate the whites from the blacks while burying the dead because the whites will be buried in a coffin. This represents the thoughts of white supremacy by saying that the blacks were not valued enough to be buried in a coffin. Tea Cake and Janie discuss the stereotype that blacks fall under. Janie says, "De ones de white man know is nice colored folks. De ones he don't know is bad niggers" (172). White men assume that black men are bad if they are unknown by the white men. Tea Cake believes that white men think the black men "[they] don't know oughta be tried and sentenced tuh six months behind de United States privy house at hard smellin' (172). In Tea Cake's opinion, white men assume the worst about black men that they do not know.
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