Black Boy Essay free essay sample

Many of the ideas that he writes are shown in Richard Wright’s Black Boy. â€Å"So for generations in the mind of America, the Negro has been more of a formula than a human being-a something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be â€Å"kept down†, or â€Å"in his place†, or â€Å"helped up,† to be worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden† (Locke 1). Alain Locke is describing how the black Americans were never really considered people at all to the country that hosted them. They were talked about as possessions and they never had a say in what happened to them (up until the civil rights movements of course). They were sort of a blank, dark slate in the eyes of a white nation. A nation that didn’t know what to do and was still trying to figure things out along the road. For a long time, white men treated black Americans as if they were fresh of the ships from Africa. Alain Locke and Richard Wright’s ideas go hand in hand. Both talk about and express their feeling towards African American’s treatment and place in society. After I had outlived the shocks of childhood, after the habit of reflection had been born in me, I used to mull over the strange absence of real kindness in Negroes, how unstable was our tenderness, how lacking in genuine passion we were, how void of great hope, how timid our joy, how bare our traditions, how hollow our traditions, how hollow our memories, how lacking we were in those intangible sentiments that bind man to man (37). Black people weren’t really thought as people. White men never considered them and their emotions. Black Americans lacked â€Å"genuine passion†, and couldn’t care for others, right? Wright also mentions how even their greatest joys are timid. My guess is this is because they never really experienced happy feelings; there really wasn’t much happiness in their lives. All of these phrases that Wright uses to show what black Americans lacked, all helped to show the big picture, how black Americans were living IN America, but not OF it. Another passage where Wright writes about the white man acting as if the black Americans were possessions was on page 200. But I, who stole nothing =, who wanted to look them straight in the face, who wanted to act like a man, inspired fear in them. The southern whites would rather have Negroes who stole, work for them than Negroes who knew, however dimly, the worth of their own humanity. Hence, whites placed a premium on black deceit; they encouraged irresponsibility; and their rewards were bestowed upon us blacks in the degree that we could not make them feel safe and superior (200) White men often took advantage of Black Americans. They weren’t educated and were often in many cases desperate. In some rare occasions like Richard’s, black Americans were smart, and knew when they were being taken advantage. Richard wouldn’t steal, and this act of doing the right thing scared the business owners. The men encouraged irresponsibility and didn’t care if a black boy was caught and put in jail, he would just get another worker easily. The morals of the southern white men were undoubtedly wrong, and Richard was luckily better than them. In the break in voice on page 266, Richard Wright reflects on the ideas of white men putting self-hatred into black Americans, causing them to eventually hate themselves. (Color had defined the place of black life as that of below white life; and the black man, responding to the same dreams of the white man , strove to bury within his heart his awareness of this difference because it made him lonely and afraid. Hated by whites and being an organic part of the culture that hated him, the black man grew in turn to hate himself that which others hated in him. But pride would make him hide his self-hate, for he would not want whites to know that he was so thoroughly conquered by them†¦ (266) First of, the fact that a person can be so conquered to the point where he hates himself is sickening. Many times these days you here of bullying in schools because of someone not being socially acceptable to other people because of their religion, race, or sexuality. More times than it should, this â€Å"playful banter† leads to someone not breathing anymore. Imagine living in a society where you weren’t socially acceptable, and every move you made was being watched. Where as soon as you slipped up, people were on you like white on rice. Imagine the hatred that would be swung back and forth between the two parties. I’m sure many people would go insane and/or just lose it. Consider it a victory for the guys in white. You had to be strong, and nothing could faze you. A black man wasnt treated as that of a white man, but thats how racism was, it was the ultimate test of patience. Looking at society today, the black man must have passed it with soaring colors. Nothing but respect is given to Richard Wright and Alain Locke. They both showed courage at a time where despair and pain was all their people, as well as they at one point knew. That didn’t stop them from sharing, and voicing their words for the whole world to hear. It takes courage to be a firefighter, knowledge to be a teacher, skill to be a craftsman, and persistence to be a lawyer, but when you put them all together, you have two authors who speak their minds with great knowledge from experience, and who have fine-tuned their craft with persistence.