An example of Cassie's naivety and ignorance is the Strawberry incident when she doesn’t realise that the whites have to be served before the blacks and assumes that 'Mr Barnett has simply forgotten about TJ's order' so she decides to 'remind him'. We as the readers get to see the reactions of the people, if Cassie hadn't done that then we wouldn't see how racist these white people are to blacks.
Also, the novel shows us that not only the adults were affected, but the younger generation were too. Cassie is amongst both children and adults so we get some view on how the adults felt. However it is mainly the children who found it more difficult to understand 'the way of things' as Mama explains to Cassie that 'things are not always we would have them to be' even though 'it aint fair'.
Adults in the novel tend to be more bias than children. Cassie is shown to like Jeremy to a certain extent for who he is and not just for the colour of his skin. However, someone like Uncle Hammer would probably not take to being friends with him and this is proven when he tells Mr Logan 'he looks like a Simms' and when he finds out its Jeremy he asks 'then what the devil-'.
To get a balanced view, we must look now look at the disadvantages to Cassie's narrating. Although she isn’t that bias with Jeremy, she is shown to be bias towards TJ. TJ is presented through Cassie's eyes, so the reader is not allowed to make an independent judgement of him. Therefore, the degree to which we are allowed to sympathise with TJ is very much governed by how Cassie relates to him through various incidents in the book.
Cassie's naivety can also be a disadvantage for her. The fact that Cassie is young means that she doesn't understand a lot of things and so isn't involved in the complex issues and events that happen in the novel. Therefore, she cannot give out that much information to the readers and doesn’t explain things properly.
Her information is mostly secondary. Cassie learns a lot from TJ, who is a sly gossiper, and the rest she overhears from adults conversations. TJ gives her 'an earful 'bout that burnin' since she doesn’t 'seem to know nothin' and she hears more about what happened to the Berry's while 'the boys and I sat at out study table pretending not to listen but listening still'. It seems unnatural the way she eavesdrops and so is it is unrealistic as she always happens to be at the right place at the right time.
The readers also learns that Children don’t play the largest part in the racial discrimination, adults do and so the adults points of views and feelings aren't seen much in the novel
Although it is quite unusual in novels to have child narrators, Cassie is only ten years olds and narrates the whole story successfully. By the end of the novel, and the end of the year she has grown up and learnt a lot through all the episodes she has narrated. Although, Cassie's narrating has its bad points, the advantages override them. One of the Mildred Taylor's aims in writing 'Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry' was to provide children with a sense of identity and history and by using Cassie she has achieved this and made clear that it is not only adults who suffer but children too.
