Black Boy By Richard Wright Essay

Harper and Brothers in New York first published Black Boy, an autobiography of Richard Wright, in 1945. The Harper Perennial Edition, published in paper back in 1998 runs to 448 pages. There is more than one theme which runs through this work, of course, but the over-riding, end-all, be-all message which the author hammers home is that harm is done to fellow humans in the name of racial bigotry. Wright’s theme begins with the very title of the book. Black Boy is an epithet used to denigrate blacks as surely as is Nigger, the title chosen by Dick Gregory for his autobiography in the 1960s. Wright’s story takes place in the early 20th century. He sees racism as a child and as an adult. It is a major force in the development of his personality and influences virtually every facet of his life. In Black Boy Richard Wright explores the theme of racism and ultimately suggests that racism is culturally ingrained and it colors not only relations between blacks and whites, but it also affects relationships between blacks. Black people of the era did not want a young black to ‘rise above his station’ in life. Since Wright is reared in abject poverty his peers did not wish to see him try and break his metaphorical chains. His father is mostly absent and he has no strong male influences for the good. He relates how he got over on his father without being punished, â€Å"I had my first triumph over my father (at age 12). I had made him believe that I had taken his words literally (12). He was physically abused. The institutional racism of that day was called Jim Crow and particularly in the deep south of the United States it was a way of life. He grew up misunderstood even by his own people. Blacks of his day were not supposed to get ‘uppity’, meaning they were supposed to act subservient to white people because a black who disrespected a white person would bring down retribution on countless other black people who had done nothing. The blacks that should have had a positive influence on Wright as a child were either blind to his gifts or chose not to see. They not only did nothing to encourage him but also rather did all they could to hold him back. Likely it was so they would not draw attention to themselves or seem ‘uppity’ but the result was a gifted child who lost years of this life that could have been spent in pursuit of the arts. Wright has criticism not only for the white laws, the white establishment and the white race, but also gives a scathing critique of the black community as well. This book is an indictment of the adult black community of his era that refused to take matters into their own hands to educate and guide the children that so desperately needed such guidance. Wright tells his audience that it is not until later in life when he is exposed to literature that he has any idea of what he is missing. He doesn’t know such beauty and such profound thought even exists. Wright’s life is a struggle against the status quo in his native state and in the north where he finds himself as a young adult. White America does not want an intelligent angry young black man voicing his criticisms of the American way of life and blacks do not want him rocking the boat. This is years before Dr. King and even Brown vs. The Board of Education and no one knows what to do with Wright. Mostly they want him to go away. This in itself influences Wright’s attitudes toward his fellow blacks and reinforces the theme of racism being detrimental even to other members of one’s own race. Wright at first sees only two ways to react to his life, feeling caught as he is between the warring races. He can become subservient and bow to the inevitable. He can drink, steal, lie and fight, which he does at first, or he toss away the stereotype of the illiterate lazy black boy and become someone else’s idea of compliant, giving a graduation speech written for him, †You can’t afford to say just anything before those white people that night,† (175) his professor tells him, not allowing him freedom to speak his mind. Wright tosses off the yoke of conformity and does battle with whites and blacks as the need arises. He sees that it is not the white race alone that is holding him back. The metaphor Wright adopts to show his desire for knowledge is hunger. He tells the reader constantly of his incessant childhood hunger, never totally sated, (14) always wanting more than is available and he means for the reader to equate this physical hunger with his hunger for knowledge. He relates how he consumes food and Proust with equal passion. It is implied that it is both whites and blacks who withhold the food, both physically and metaphorically that he so desperately craves to fuel body and soul. Wright tells the reader that it is blacks that are first responsible for trying to quench the fire of his independent spirit but he rises above them and goes his own way, becoming what his heart tells him he must become. He relates how as a child he and the other black children were not given the education they need to rise above that ‘station’ and he blames not the whites but the blacks for the lack of recognition of bright black children who could do so much more with their lives had they but an education. He faults the black teachers and administrators of his school for kowtowing to the whites and keeping black children in ‘their place’. For these reasons Wright ultimately suggests that racism is culturally ingrained and it colors not only relations between blacks and whites, but it also affects relationships between blacks