One Final Incident The Richard example essay topic

In the book Black Boy, we see many black people in the south dealing with many hardships. One of the most prominent problems for blacks seemed to be the 'Jim Crow' laws. These laws withheld blacks from society, breaking them apart from whites and making it very hard for them to live an even close to normal life. Black people couldn't express their own ideas at all. They had to call all white men 'sirs' and all white women 'ma " am'. They couldn't act the slightest bit superior to whites.

It was almost impossible for black people to make a decent living in the south, and they also had to take the abuse dealt to them by he whites without even attempting ant resistance. Blacks in the south also had to deal with the separation aspects of the 'Jim crow' laws. They had to sit in the back of the buses, they had to use separate water fountains and bathrooms, they were looked upon almost like they had some sort of disease. These are just a few of the 'Jim Crow' laws that the black people had to deal with. Richard was not the only one in this book dealing with racism.

Allt he people around him were also coping with it also, friends co-workers and family had to face the challenges of a racist environment. Throughout the book we see these other people dealing with the problems of an extremely racist society. We also see how each person in Richards life deals with it differently. There are a few people and that stick out in my mind especially.

The first one would have to bean incident with Shorty. Shorty has dealt with racism his whole life, and he has learned to deal with it ashe has grown. We see a great example of how Shorty deals on page 269 Shorty is faced with the problem of no money, such as many other southern blacks were, and we see that he is willing to do anything for any amount of money. ' You can kick me in the ass for a quarter' (269, wright) As this happens Richard witnesses the whole thing and we can see that he is very disappointed in the way Shorty dealt with the situation. He can't understand how he can put himself in that kind of degrading position, and Shorty simply answers. ' But a quarter can't pay for what he did to you!' But we can see Shorty thinks differently.

Another example of a person that dealt differently with the Racism around him was Uncle Hoskins. He was a man just trying to make his own in this world. Minding his own business, trying to run his own business so he could support his family. We see that he owes some money to some white people, it seems to play a part at the time of his killing, but if you look deeper you see that the most significant reason for him being lynched was that he was a somewhat successful black man, and the white people didn't like that. Uncle Hoskins is just a black man who tried hard to mind his own business, and that was his way of dealing with the hardships he was faced with, but we know that no matter how he dealt with it he was never going to be left alone because he was a somewhat successful black man, and that just wasn't acceptable. One final example is his family.

Like his mother, and his grandmother. We don't really see many big incidences of them dealing with racism. We mostly just see how hard it is for them to get by in life. They don't have a lot of money, no medical care and at a few points we even see them having to neglect Richard and his brother.

It wasn't totally their decision though because it was just to hard to raise children in that situation. They just had to deal with it by taking it one day ata time, and their really wasn't much they could do. Richard has had to deal with many racist situations. We see that he doesn't really deal well with being treated inferior to whites. One incident that Richard was treated racist ly was when he was shopping in a convenience store in a white neighborhood, and as soon as he exited the store he was approached by the police. He was forced to the ground and cuffed.

In the end we know he got off but he was told not to walk in white neighborhood at night. This was one situation where Richard was not treated to badly, but we still know he was not treated like a white person and he didn't like it at all. He didn't appreciate being called boy, and having to call the white men 'sirs'. He also didn't appreciate being blamed for a crime that he didn't commit.

Another incident that Richard was treated racist ly, was when Richard was working in the brick yard and he was bit by the owners dog. He was later fired because he complained to the boss, and though the boss didn't directly say he was firing him because he was black or complaining we knew it because he said to Richard that he was basically lying about the pain because dog bites don't hurt black skin. By this point in the book Richard learns to deal better with racism, but he still has attitude about being treated differently then the white kids or adults. One final incident the Richard had to deal with was when he was working at the hotel. This incident didn't completely have to deal with him but he got involved.

When the door man at the hotel slapped his black girl friend in the ass as they were walking out of the hotel, Richard got pretty upset that he did that considering that the doorman was white. It was like he couldn't understand how white people didn't like blacks, but yet the would use such sexual connotations towards the black women, We see Richard react, as he stops and just looks at the doorman. After Richard decides not react violently, and got somewhat of a threat from the doorman when he just continued. This was Richards way of 'scaring' the white man without starting something physical. We see Richard sway of dealing with the racism change throughout the book.

When he is younger we see how he can't help but get defensive, and as he gets older he learns to control himself better.