Theme Of Man's Inhumanities To Man

My Essay A theme found commonly throughout history is “man’s inhumanities to man”. This theme was especially present in the nineteenth-century in the South, with whites treating blacks extremely poorly and depriving blacks of social and economic opportunities and successes and dealing with police violence. In Richard Wright’s Black Boy this theme is explored through Richard’s struggles to work and adapt in a racist southern society. Throughout Richard Wright’s novel Black Boy Richard learns the harsh ways of southern society through rough encounters with whites. Richard displays what he has learned about southern life when he proclaims “I could calculate my chances for life in the South as a Negro fairly clearly now. I could fight the southern whites… But I knew that I could never win… They were strong and we were weak” (Wright 252). After many years of struggling to understand his role in southern society Richard finally recognizes the tragic fate of seemingly every black stuck in the southern culture would eventually suffer. He realizes that there was no chance for success because of his skin color. This lamentable fate is shared by all blacks in their society. In Richard’s view he could never beat …show more content…
Blacks in Richard’s time period feared corrupt cops and what they might do to them, sadly many people still fear this in today’s society. Many young blacks are afraid of cops for good reason “the results show that black youths were nine times likelier — instead of 21 times likelier — to be killed by police than young white people” (Katel). This alarming statistic displays the fears of black communities to be a reality. Every day, young blacks are subjected to police brutality and fear the people who are supposed to be protecting them. Some fatal shootings of young blacks have caused outrage and riots all over the