In 1946, Richard Wright officially became an expatriate (one who lives outside of his native country). While nobody could be blamed for their desire to leave after living through the inhumanity that was the Southern United States during the first half of the twentieth century, Wright’s reasoning was not that of escape. In his novel Black Boy, the author wrote of his reasons for leaving the United States: “I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it” (source this). Even for someone who had to endure the atrocities first-hand, Wright understood that the only way to move on from something terrible is to embrace the fact that it happened. We must take his stance as well, regardless of our personal opinions on the matters. It would be foolish to expect racism to completely end, as there are plenty of people who were simply raised to be racially intolerant. We do have the power to learn from our mistakes of the past and move toward a future where racial intolerance and cruelty is no longer a template for the front page of every newspaper in the
In 1946, Richard Wright officially became an expatriate (one who lives outside of his native country). While nobody could be blamed for their desire to leave after living through the inhumanity that was the Southern United States during the first half of the twentieth century, Wright’s reasoning was not that of escape. In his novel Black Boy, the author wrote of his reasons for leaving the United States: “I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it” (source this). Even for someone who had to endure the atrocities first-hand, Wright understood that the only way to move on from something terrible is to embrace the fact that it happened. We must take his stance as well, regardless of our personal opinions on the matters. It would be foolish to expect racism to completely end, as there are plenty of people who were simply raised to be racially intolerant. We do have the power to learn from our mistakes of the past and move toward a future where racial intolerance and cruelty is no longer a template for the front page of every newspaper in the