Racial Profiling In Richard Wright's Autobiography 'Black Boy'

1176 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effect of the Jim Crow laws

Black Boy Essay
Richard Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy, recounts Wright’s upbringing in the South. The story was set in the South, after the Civil War and before the Civil Rights Movement. Early on in the book Wright finds a passion for learning and reading, which leads him to read the works of H.L. Mencken, a proponent of equal rights between blacks and whites. Ultimately, this influences Wright to become a writer and to fight for his rights. However, today much has changed; the Jim Crow Laws have been outlawed, and some may say that this is the most equal America has ever been. Despite this, racial discrimination, whilst being much less prominent, is still existent. In light of this, if Wright were writing an autobiography titled …show more content…

Wright would likely have little trust in police officers because of the racial profiling he is likely to experience due to being black. This situation would be similar to how it was like in the past, as the authorities did nothing to halt racial violence in the south. From Wright’s point of view, police would seem dangerous instead of protective, since he used to be targeted by police in the south. Wright’s autobiography would talk about how Wright is pulled over more than his friends of other ethnicities, just because of his race. According to Kia Makerechi’s article, “What the Data Really Says about Police and Racial Bias,” blacks made up about 83% of the stops made by police in New York, which indicates that the authorities are racially biased against Africans Americans. This would also be a motivation for Wright to strive for more equality, just like he had done in the past. He would state that the police must have restrictions placed on them to keep them in check, so that racial profiling would not be a problem anymore. When new laws are finally instituted to protect minorities from profiling, Wright would be able to rejoice, and be proud that the government is finally doing something to better the lives of blacks and other

Show More
Related

  • Use of Rhetorical Strategies in Richard Wright’s Autobiography, Black Boy

    468 Words  | 1 Pages

    Richard Wright grew up in a bitterly racist America. In his autobiography Black Boy, he reveals his personal experience with the potency of language. Wright delineates the efficacious role language plays in forming one’s identity and social acceptance through an ingenious use of various rhetorical strategies.

    Read More

  • Racial Profiling In Bob Herbert's Hounding The Innocent

    378 Words  | 1 Pages

    People of color are being pursued on the highways in the land of the free. In Bob Herbert’s “Hounding the innocent” acts of racial profiling are displayed flagrantly. Racial profiling should be illegal, since it is unfair to its victims, demoralizing, and it breaks the trust between the public and the police.

    Read More

  • Black Boy And Separate Pasts Analysis

    1690 Words  | 4 Pages

    Black Boy by Richard Wright and Separate Pasts: Growing up White in the Segregated South by Melton McLaurin are autobiographies based on segregation in the south in the early twentieth century. They are set in different times and different perspectives. Black Boy begins when the main character, Richard Wright, is four years old in the 1910’s. He grows up in Jackson Mississippi and moves north later in his life. In Separate Pasts the author is white and grows up in Wade, North Carolina in the 1950’s. Black Boy revolves around the experiences of Richard Wright as he grows in an extremely segregated city. Both blacks and whites accept the way things are. The more Wright grows up, the more he despises the way life is for Blacks in the south. When

    Read More

  • Richard Wright National Freedom Day

    856 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this essay he not only tells the very interesting story of Wright’s life, but he also goes into detail about everything that came his way and what he did to change the world and mold it to what we see today. One thing Kachun reminds us of in this paper is to never forget the past and where we came from, because if we do we will repeat it. Also, to pay our respects to a wonderful man who paved the way for us African American college students to be in the place that we are today. The author opens up the essay with one of Richard Wrights famous quotes, “A beacon to oppressed people everywhere”. When I first heard this quote, it really stuck to me because it just seemed really powerful because of what he was saying.

    Read More

  • Prejudice Explored in "Black Boy" by Richard Wright

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wright left the South when he decided he could no longer withstand the poverty he had long dwelled in because he was an useless African American in the eyes of the racist, white men. Little did he know that this decision he made in order to run away from poverty would become the impetus to his success as a writer later on in life. In Wright’s autobiography, his sense of hunger derived from poverty represents both the injustice African Americans had to face back then, and also what overcoming that hunger means to his own kind. The Tortilla Curtain and Black Boy are two of the many books which illustrate the discrimination going on in our unjust societies. Through the words of T. C. Boyle and Richard Wright, the difficulties illegal Mexican immigrants and African Americans had and still have to face are portrayed.

    Read More

  • How Did African Americans Influence Richard Wright

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...Jim Crow era also made it difficult for Wright to become as influential of an author as he would have liked to be. Wright is just the beginning of many African American authors sharing their own perspective, positive or negative, of the African American experience.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Black Boy Today By Richard Wright

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    How far has the United States come towards establishing equality between whites and black? Well our founding fathers did not establish equality. Here is s a clue, they are also called the Reconstruction Amendments; which were added during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War. Recall that the Declaration of Independence was signed July 4th 1776, while the Reconstruction Amendments were the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments; they were added during the periods of 1865-1870. This is nearly a ten-decade period. Despite of these amendments we still have not achieved equality among blacks and whites. How much longer will it take? Well we are in the year 2015 and yet have a lot of ground to cover. Richard Wright was born after the Civil Rights, but before the Civil Rights Movement. If he were to write a novel titled Black Boy today, he would write about how racial profiling

    Read More

  • Contrasting Native Son and Their Eyes Were Watching God

    4138 Words  | 9 Pages

    Out of bitterness and rage caused by centuries of oppression at the hands of the white population, there has evolved in the African-American community, a strong tradition of protest literature. Several authors have gained prominence for delivering fierce messages of racial inequality through literature that is compelling, efficacious and articulate. One of the most notable authors in this classification of literature is Richard Wright, author of several pieces including his most celebrated novel, Native Son, and his autobiography, Black Boy.

    Read More

  • Richard Wright

    1434 Words  | 3 Pages

    Richard Wright, hero to the black American, was one of the first men to fight for equality among blacks and whites. In his writings, Richard expresses to white people what kind of hardships all young negroes go through and how this lifestyle affect their behavior. For it is our surroundings that often influence the way we react depending on the situation. After Wrights death may other novelists and authors were inspired by him and continued the fight for equality, among them James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Ann Petry, and Chester Himes. Although the final chapters of his life closed many years ago, Richard's hopes and dreams today remain an open book.

    Read More

  • Use of Diction and Imagery in Richard Wright’s Black Boy

    786 Words  | 2 Pages

    Black Boy, which was written by Richard Wright, is an autobiography of his upbringing and of all of the trouble he encountered while growing up. Black Boy is full of drama that will sometimes make the reader laugh and other times make the reader cry. Black Boy is most known for its appeals to emotions, which will keep the reader on the edge of his/her seat. In Black Boy Richard talks about his social acceptance and identity and how it affected him. In Black Boy, Richard’s diction showed his social acceptance and his imagery showed his identity.

    Read More

  • Refutation: The Story of Bigger Thomas ( Native Son )

    1133 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Darryl Pinckney’s discerning critical essay, “Richard Wright: The Unnatural History of a Native Son,” Pinckney states that all of Wright’s books contain the themes of violence, inhumanity, rage, and fear. Wright writes about these themes because he expresses, in his books, his convictions about his own struggles with racial oppression, the “brutal realities of his early life.” Pinckney claims that Wright’s works are unique for Wright’s works did not attempt to incite whites to acknowledge blacks. Wright does not write to preach that blacks are equal to whites. The characters in Wright’s works, including Bigger Thomas from Native Son, are not all pure in heart; the characters have psychological burdens and act upon their burdens. For instance, Bigger Thomas, long under racial oppression, accidentally suffocates Mary Dalton in her room for fear that he will be discriminated against and charged with the rape of Mary Dalton. Also, according to Pinckney, although the characters of Wright’s books are under these psychological burdens, they always have “futile hopes [and] desires.” At the end of Native Son, Bigger is enlightened by the way his lawyer Max treats him, with the respect of a human being. Bigger then desires nothing but to live, but he has been sentenced to death.

    Read More

  • Valuable Lessons In Richard Wright's Autobiography, Black Boy

    443 Words  | 1 Pages

    The autobiography, Black Boy, by Richard Wright describes his life, learning valuable lessons. Richard is a young boy who lives in a tenement with his mother, father and brother. His father is known to not have the best relationship with him. His father works during the night at a drugstore and sleeps during the day. One day, their family found a stray cat at their doorstep.

    Read More

  • The Real Encounters In Richard Wright's Black Boy

    440 Words  | 1 Pages

    It was not until the library card was in Wright’s possession that he felt that he could trust in somebody other than himself. In addition, Wright’s intriguing moment of discovering the books of Mencken also pulled him into a dwelling place. The book not only showed him the pureness of sinking oneself into a book and experiencing each event as if it were true. Wright’s collection of reading also showed him the reality and exalted his understanding of the hate the world has casted upon him. Toward the end of the book I was confused for a brief moment as to why he felt this way toward the white men as a whole; since Mr. Falk went out of his way to supply Wright with what he wanted.

    Read More

  • Richard Wright Essay

    803 Words  | 2 Pages

    Before anyone changes the world they must be born, so as many before him Richard Nathaniel Wright was born on September 4, 1908 near Natchez, Mississippi. Richard Wright was the grandson of four slaves and the son of a sharecropper in fact he was born on aon a Mississippi plantation. He was mostly raised by his mother. Wrights father had left around five years after he was born. He was shuttled to different family homes in Mississippi and Arkansas before moving to Memphis. In Memphis there was rarely enough food in the house. So at six he became a drunkard. And from a very early age he was abused mentally and physically by racist employers. In his book , Black Boy, Wright described those early years as “dark and lonely as death,” causing him to reflect as follows about black life in A...

    Read More

  • Richard Wright’s Misperception of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

    2452 Words  | 5 Pages

    After analyzing a few synopses of Richard Wright’s works, it is clear that he used violence to make his political statements. It is not just the actions of Wright’s characters in The Native Son and Uncle Tom’s Children that are violent; in many cases, Wright himself seems very sensitive to any sort of racial provocation. In The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, he details a few of his encounters with racial oppression. Many of them feature violence, and his reflections of his experiences become less and less emotional, almost as of this was all he had come to expect from whites.

    Read More

More about Racial Profiling In Richard Wright's Autobiography 'Black Boy'

Open Document