Troy was not racist.

I think it would be hard to classify Troy as a racist man, especially after taking on consideration the time in which the whole story takes place. Troy grew up in a time when segregation was big and the difference between races was shown everywhere, even though he used multiple racial names when referring to white people, we must take in consideration the fact that back then those names were common among black people when referring to white people. The time when Troy grew up was the time in which African American fought the hardest to obtain equality in America, his personality was driven by all those movements and racial tensions happening at the time. He expressed the same amount of dislike towards both black and white races, referring to black people as niggers and to white people as crackers. More than anything I think that he was trying to gain equality in society, he was trying to be a good example for his friends and family by confronting people over him, which at the time was mainly white people. He also used to tell all kinds of stories to his friends and family to try to impress them, and out of all the stories he had to tell about white people and past experiences he had, probably only a small percentage was true. He was mainly trying to obtain a better paying job, no to discriminate against white people. To be racist you have to hate against other races, and discriminate in a bad way in which harm is intended. By no means was troy trying express that type of behavior towards white people in the story.