Racism Exposed In Richard Wright's Black Boy

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To be a black boy, what does it take? Is your DNA, the only thing that considers you this person in America---yes, scientifically speaking. A black boy in America back then was made up of hard work, discipline, and the desire of the American dream just as any other male correct? The only issue is that the black boy goes through more hoops than the average joe. They face racism on a daily basis and because of the systematic oppression going on in the black boy’s everyday life, they don’t have as many opportunities. In Richard Wright’s memoir Black Boy, Wright informs readers of the hardship of being a black boy growing up in the early 20th century and how he has overcome many obstacles in his life such as racism, segregation, prejudice, and …show more content…
Of course italics would be used for the reason of naming something. But he unusually uses it in the religious parts of the story. He even puts the hymns into a separate paragraph but why? When Wright and a few boys were going up for the people of the church pray for them in the story in chapter 6, they sang a hymn singing, “It ain’t my brother, but it’s me, Oh, Lord, Standing in the need of prayer”.(Wright 153) Wright often has this internal struggle, which was also an irony, that he was not a believer of God while his family was very very religious. He uses the following …show more content…
While reading the book, Wright helps the reader feel his trials and tribulations and through the different devices, the reader can know who this certain “black boy” really was. At the end of the day, all Wright had was a sense of hope to keep him alive. He says, “The problem human unity was more important than bread, more important than physical living itself; for I felt that without a continuous current of shared thought and feeling circulating through the social system, like blood coursing through the body, there could be no living worthy of being called human”. (Wright

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