I would propose that there are better things than those two in the book, but I did mention the holidays, political parties, and religion in one line. And, I don't read it as a somber story. Those two points aren't particularly pertinent to the division between slaves and free people, especially from the perspective of taking individual action from the enslaved position. Two faced people, especially politicians, and various forms of preference and discrimination are always ongoing battles in all societies. A society that supports universal individual rights is of course the answer to both of those, and that's the ideal that the United States brought into the world, but it's a long and hard fight.