Wright Speaking To Us

“(The essence of the irony of the plight of the Negro in America, to me, is that he is doomed to live in isolation while those who condemn him seek the basest goals of any people on the face of the earth. Perhaps it would be possible for the Negro to become reconciled to his plight if he could be made to believe that his sufferings were for some remote, high, sacrificial end; but sharing the culture that condemns him, and seeing that a lust for trash is what blinds the nation to his claims, is what sets storms to rolling in his soul.)”

In this passage, Wright reveals another one of his deep and groundbreaking thoughts. This is that, not only are the African Americans resigned to be shunned from those around them while the White people chase after material goods, but that this treatment torments the African Americans soul. Wright believes that if the African American population were to be told that they were suffering for a reason or cause (for example, that their suffering would somehow help their kids) then they would be able to accept this kind of discrimination more readily. However, they are not told this and do not believe this and as a result they see themselves pushed aside and left the bare bones while those that had oppressed them chase after material wealth (the “trash”). This sheds a great deal of light on the plight of the African Americans but it is not made clear if he realized this while he was still in Chicago or until much later.

Malcolm X: Learning to Read

The education Malcolm X received truly helped to liberate him, not only in the sense that it gave him a distraction from his prison life, but also allowed him to become more in tune with the world around him. He was soon able to write more fluently, but more importantly he learned how the history of those in the minority is covered up, as shown by the idea that the “Black” history was only about a paragraph long, while the “White” history took up an entire book. This allowed him to see and come to terms with the racism he found to be so rampant and he soon began working hard to overcome this racism. The effect books had for Richard, however, was far different. Whereas Malcolm X used the books as a mean to get in touch with the world around him, Richard used the stories books conveyed to escape from his life whenever it got really hard. Eventually Wright begins to use the books to understand the real world and come to terms with it, but in the beginning he merely uses them to escape his current life.

Wright's Decision

Wright’s decision to move is a positive move as it is allowing him to move forward with his life and escape from the South he has long viewed as oppressing his growth. He would now be able to move to an area he has dreamed as being more accepting of Africans and Americans and would be more likely to allow him to pursue goals he dreamed of, such as writing. Though he would be leaving his family yet again, in another environment hostile to them, it was the only possible move because it would take too long to save for them all moving at once. Also, he would only be separated from his family for a short time while he saved up money to send for them. This was a good move in the right direction and one of the only possible moves Wright had, with the other being staying in the South, an idea he found truly repugnant.

I'm Ahead of Blogs For Once

Yes, though Richard no longer lived in the Deep South, the subservience he expressed through his daily life was still necessary. Within the Deep South, many white people would use any excuse to beat an African-American like Richard. Though they were a little more tolerant in Memphis, they would still inflict a horrible punishment on Richard if they felt he had in any way disrespected them or slighted their authority. This is shown by the attitude change that occurs when he finally announces he is going North. As Wright states, their attitude towards him changed and began questioning him as to why he would go North, and he had to carefully word his answers so as not to imply any wrongdoing on their part. This sensitivity to small slights is exactly why Wright needed to maintain his subservient attitude throughout his life in the South.

Wright's Coping

Wright says that he began coping with the white world far too late. This means that he began to learn how to really act around white people far later than most of his compatriots, meaning he did not truly know how to act and thus got in trouble a lot for things that he feels, and most people now would feel, are no big deal. However, in the society of the Jim Crow South, complete subservience was expected and Wright was just never able to truly get the hang of it as his friend Griggs was. This manifests itself in the next few chapters in the form of all the jobs that Wright held and then lost due to his inability to perform as white people expected him to perform when in front of them. This is even further reinforced by the fact that he begins to take what could nearly be called lessons from Griggs on how to act. This is why Wright says he began coping in the white world too late.

Wright's Refusal

The question of if Wright was correct in refusing to recite the headmaster’s speech is all a matter of opinion. If you are thinking from the position of what would be best for his future then it would definitely have been better for him to say the headmaster’s speech because he would not have to deal with any possible consequences of white suppression and would get his credit for graduating from eighth grade. However, from a different more moralistic stand point, he was absolutely correct in refusing to read a blanket statement because, foremost it gave him the freedom to say what he wished. It was wrong of the headmaster to force him to read a statement when he didn’t even know what Richard would say, nor did he know if it would truly be inflammatory. Secondly, it was a great step in throwing off shackles that people placed on Richard when trying to force him to bend to their rules and more importantly struck against the white supremacy in the area, though the blow may have been small. Overall, I think it was right for Richard to deny his headmaster’s statement and make his own.

Uncle Tom

Richard is mad at Uncle Tom for a multitude of reasons. One of the predominant reasons is the fact that Uncle Tom woke Richard up from sleep just to ask about the time, an illegitimate reason for waking him in Richard’s opinion. Furthering this is the anger of the Uncle when he views Richard’s “approximation” as disobedience. Richard has never responded well to people attempting to beat him for what Richard perceives as bad reasons. He has already had two encounters with his Aunt over these wrongs and the encounter with the uncle is just an extension of this. He is tired of taking wrongful crap, not just from the white people who he knows will give him crap, but from his own family members whom he doesn’t expect to wrong him but are still attempting to do so.