EXTRA CREDIT "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow"

Richard Wright tells a compelling story in “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”. It is a story of his life and how he had to learn how to behave as a young Black growing up in a torn society. As a child he learned very quickly that his behaviors towards whites where essential for his survival. Richard worked several jobs growing up, all under white bosses. At his first job he was treated poorly by his white coworkers who felt threatened by his mere existence. They beat him and told him “this is a white man’s work around here” (24). He learned quickly that if he wanted to work then he would have to know his place beneath the whites that ran society. It is a truly heart breaking story to hear how Richard was treated. He had to change his way of living and act a certain way just to keep from being beaten. If Richard made even the smallest mistake, like forgetting to call a white man sir, then he was punished. When punishment was giving out to blacks at this time it wasn’t a harsh word or some kind of fine they would have to pay. They paid for their mistakes through beatings and harassment. It literally was a life of survival and adapting in order keep out of trouble. I guess the question that comes to mind is why didn’t the blacks come together and fight back. If a white woman was assaulted in front of a white man he would defend her. Richard however, was unable to defend the black woman in his story. I guess at this time white supremacy was too strong to fight against. The thing that really upset me was how after the white men would beat up Richard or some other black who was out of line, they would say something about how they were lucky that was all that they got. To me this seemed like they were threatening death. It is hard for me to imagine a white man killing a black man simple because he did not call him sir. This thought is terrifying to me. The more important thing is that people actually committed these offenses without punishment. It all goes back to public lynching of black and the cruelty that they lived with. In our society today it is hard to imagine that these things actually did exist. Being someone who is white I can not believe that I very possible had ancestors who practiced these behaviors and believed that they were doing the bidding of God. I know that different justifications were used for whites violence against black however by today standards nothing seems to justify the cruelty that our society placed upon another human race.