We are more aware of Millat's cultural hybridity than we are that he has been ' fucked with' (232) by the likes of the ticket salesman who refers to him as a 'Paki' (231). Racist incidents are often presented retrospectively, forcing a distance between them and the reader. The racial tensions that are a part of the characters' reality are rarely forefronted in the narrative, and seldom play a part in the relationships between the novel's main characters. In most of the meaningful relationships of the novel, between Irie and Millat, and Samad and Archie, race or culture is no boundary at all the characters are human beings first with culture simply an addendum. The relationship between Archie and Samad endures through the 500-page novel, though it is tested at times by Samad's increasing fundamentalism. Divisions of race are not presented as unbridgeable in White Teeth, an open attitude not just confined to the second-generation of immigrants and their peers. In this depiction of a London community, which does not conform to the negative or troubled model often reported in the media, the novel appears to be opposed to the outlook of sociologists such as, who suggest that those involved can take pleasure in transgressively preserving the racial, cultural, and ethnic gaps. The idea of 'difference' seems to belong more to the older generation than it does the younger who are oblivious to the baggage that may accompany racial difference. For this generation, cultural mixing is the norm, and they are accustomed to the fluidity of social formations that constitute London's multi-racial society. At Glenard Oak School they are instructed to 'respect other cultures,' yet in the light of their daily interaction with one another where 'Babelians of every conceivable class and colour' coexist with little trouble, this directive has a slightly inane ring to it. Millat, Magid and Irie are products of a hybrid and culturally mixed community, and this is something they take for granted. While the relations between Irie, Millat, Magid, Joshua, and others of their generation are at various times strained or difficult, this is seldom due to racial tensions. In the early part of White Teeth, issues of race, ethnicity or difference rarely complicate the relationships between the novel's rainbow characters.
In this discussion of friendships and relationships in White Teeth, third-year undergraduate Derica Shields shows how social transactions in the novel can alter characters' assumptions about themselves - and perhaps change our minds about ourselves, too.
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