Theme Of Racism In Richard Wright's Black Boy

In the 1900s there were as many as nine hundred recorded lynchings of black people by whites due to the intense racial hatred. In the autobiographical novel, Black Boy by Richard Wright, the author describes in great detail how difficult life was growing up in biased South America. Racism plays a huge and devastating role throughout the book, showing how such animosity affected those who were targeted. One major theme in Black Boy is that no matter in which culture, racism is dehumanizing and alienates those subjected to it; which leads the victims to live oppressed lives full of loathing. Racial discrimination is hurtful to all who are prejudiced against. Wright has dealt with extreme racial aggression since he was a child, though it wasn’t …show more content…
Now as a young adult, he observers more of the physical and mental abuse inflicted on his people, but is helpless to do anything but gawk in horror, “The boss, his son, and the clerk treated the Negroes with open contempt, pushing, kicking, or slapping them. No matter how often I witnessed it, I could not get used to it” (Wright, 179). In such a society where a free thought can kill a black man, Richard has to keep quiet to keep alive. However, just because he’s forced to stay quiet doesn’t mean he can turn a blind eye to the violence inflicted on innocent men and women of color, “Each day in the store I watched the brutality with growing hate, yet trying to keep my feelings from registering in my face” (Wright, 182). This is proof that racism is damaging, as it slowly builds up a dark fury full of hatred in Richard that can only be ignored for so long. Most of the tension between blacks and whites is seen through the eyes of Richard, the protagonist, but racism affects an entire race, not just a single person, “You know, Dick, you may think I’m an Uncle Tom, but I’m not. I hate these white people, hate ‘em with all my heart. But I can’t show it; if I did, they’d kill me” (Wright, 185). Griggs can also join in with Richard’s sentiment, but they’re both smart enough to know the danger they’re in if they speak their minds. Both these young men know that between white and black folk …show more content…
Being an honest, hard-working man that he is, Richard has a good sense of moral. His hatred of whites corrupts him not enough to join in the growing violence, but enough to forget his morals and break the law, “He was white, and I could never do to him what he and his kind had done to me. Therefore, I reasoned, stealing was not a violation of my ethics, but of his;…” (Wright, 203). Racism has alienated whites from blacks and blacks from whites. The law doesn’t apply to either of the two in their minds if it means they’ll win a small victory over the other race. However small victories aren’t enough to even out the odds against the whites and with the animosity slowly tipping over, Richards and others have a hard time staying peaceful, “But under all our talk floated a latent sense of violence; the whites had drawn a line over which we dared not step and we accepted that line because our bread was at stake” (Wright, 229). Hatred produced from racism can never end well, as proven by history’s infamous Hitler and Rwanda genocides. In this type of harsh reality, it’s every man for himself, and though the racism should bring people of the same race closer together to fend off a common foe, all it does is turn people against each other, “Each of us depended upon the whites for the bread we ate, and we actually trusted