Racism

• For Atwood, growing up in North America, discrimination against black people would have been an obvious form of racism.
• Atwood is also aware of the discrimination of native tribes in Canada.
• The chair of the meeting in the historical notes section is 'Professor Maryann Cresent Moon from the department of Caucasian anthropology', suggesting that a woman of North American native descent views white people as a topic of study, rather than a superior race.
• In the USA, millions of people were brought from Africa as slaves to work in plantations from the 16th to the 19th century.
• Racism continues long after the abolishment, and though now illegal, it still exists in some areas and attitudes.
• In the novel, the children of Ham that Atwood describes in chapter 14 are being transported to 'national homeland one', which are traditionally black Americans, as in Genesis Noah had three children of the world: Shem, Japheth, and Ham.
• Ham is seen as the ancestors to African races as some of his sons established tribes in northeast Africa.
• The idea of separating races in enclaves like 'national homeland one' reminds readers of the system of apartheid, meaning separateness, which was enforced in South Africa between 1948 and 1994.
• The separation of natives American into reservations in the 19th century when colonists took over the lands may also be reflected in the novel.