Oppression Of African Americans In Black Boy By Richard Wright

In Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, Richard is struggling to survive in a racist environment in the South. In his youth, Richard is vaguely aware of the differences between blacks and whites. He scarcely notices if a person is black or white, and views all people equally. As Richard grows older, he becomes more and more aware of how whites treat blacks, the social differences between the races, and how he is expected to act when in the presence of white people. Richard, with a rebellious nature, finds that he is torn between his need to be treated respectfully, with dignity and as an individual with value and his need to conform to the white rules of society for survival and acceptance.

“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.” –Richard Wright, Black Boy. The author suffered and lived through an isolated society, where books were the only option for him to escape the reality of the world. Wright wrote this fictionalized book about his childhood and adulthood to portray the dark and cruel civilization and to illustrate the difficulties that blacks had, living in a world run by whites.

Throughout history, many people have been oppressed because of their race, religion and gender, resulting in the loss of their rights and freedom. Despite the fact that freedom is an inherent rights of any human being, many examples have proven that these rights often require rebellious acts to obtain said rights. Although human rights have evolved over the years, humans still fail to learn from their mistakes, resulting in history repeating itself. Through storytelling and novels, people show depictions of history to honour those who have died and to educate younger generations to prevent unfortunate events from occurring again. In this same vein, Lawrence Hill and Alice Walker display oppression through abuse, structural inequality and gender stereotypes. Although the novels, The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and The Colour Purple by Alice Walker were written in different time periods and revolved around different cultural influences, each demonstrates the theme of oppression throughout various events.

Richard Wright was born after the Civil War but before the Civil Right Era. If he were writing an autobiography titled Black Boy today (2016) about a black boy growing up in the United States, he would write about racial profiling against African Americans, the wide education gap between black and white, and the unequal job opportunity for African American.

In his autobiographical work, Black Boy, Richard Wright wrote about his battles with hunger, abuse, and racism in the south during the early 1900's. Wright was a gifted author with a passion for writing that refused to be squelched, even when he was a young boy. To convey his attitude toward the importance of language as a key to identity and social acceptance, Wright used rhetorical techniques such as rhetorical appeals and diction.

Black Boy is an autobiography of Richard Wright who grew up in the backwoods of Mississippi. He lived in poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and had rage towards those around him; at six he was a "drunkard," hanging about in taverns. He was surrounded on one side by whites who were either indifferent to him, pitying, or cruel, and on the other by blacks who resented anyone trying to rise above the common people who were slaves or struggling.

Richard Wright is known to be one of the most influential African American writers of the 20th century. He was well known for his sometimes controversial essays and short stories. Much of his work dealt with racial themes and is said to have paved the way for many other African American writers in the fight against racism in the 1900s. One of Wright’s essays “The Living Ethics of Jim Crow” (1937), demonstrates the conditioning of African Americans through the acceptance of disenfranchisement and inferiority through a personal look in Richard Wright’s life. This conditioning is brought through childhood upbringings, the stigmas placed by society, and the internal acceptance of those stigmas through reoccurring experiences.

Throughout history, many have been oppressed because of their race, religion and gender, resulting in the loss of their rights and freedom. Despite the fact that freedom is an inherent right of any human being, many examples have proven rebellious acts are required to obtain said rights. Although human rights have evolved over the years, humans still fail to learn from their mistakes, resulting in history repeating itself. Through storytelling and novels, people show depictions of history to honour those who have died and to educate younger generations to prevent unfortunate events from occurring again. In this same vein, Lawrence Hill and Alice Walker display oppression through abuse, structural inequality and gender stereotypes. Although the novels, The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and The Colour Purple by Alice Walker were written in different time periods and revolved around different cultural influences, each demonstrates the theme of oppression throughout various events.

"Whenever I thought of the essential bleakness of black life in America, I knew that Negroes had never been allowed to catch the full spirit of Western civilization, that they lived somehow in it but not of it. And when I brooded upon the cultural barrenness of black life, I wondered if clean, positive tenderness, love, honor, loyalty, and the capacity to remember were native with man. I asked myself if these human qualities were not fostered, won, struggled and suffered for, preserved in ritual from one generation to another." This passage written in Black Boy, the autobiography of Richard Wright shows the disadvantages of Black people in the 1930's. A man of many words, Richard Wrights is the father of the modern

Richard Wright was born after the Civil War but before the Civil Right Era. If he were writing an autobiography titled Black Boy Today (2016) about a black boy growing up in the United States, he would write about racial profiling against blacks, the wide education gap between black and white, and the unequal job opportunities for blacks.

Sufferings of Blacks Richard Wright depicts the United States through many of his hardships that he went through in his youthful years in the early 20th century and how he has overcome them. In Wright’s Black Boy, Richard associates his hunger and oppression with the United States. He associates these things with the United States through his childhood history of starvation, abuse, and cruelty from the family and society around him that made his family become unsupportive and uncaring towards him. The aspects that he associates these things with the United States are racism and ignorance to his kind of people. Wright is trying to bring awareness to the American society of the kind of difficulties that he had and many others like him and

Growing up in Mississippi in 1908, a southern state with extreme discrimination and segregation, Richard Wright went through many tough times living there as a young, black man. He was constantly insulted, looked down upon, beaten, and was threaten many times simply due to the color of his skin. However, through the darkest days of his life, he read books and obtained knowledge on the controversial topics of racism. As he grew older, he was determined to become a writer no matter what people say. He wrote his own autobiography, Black Boy, to express his life struggles and hopefully influence the minds of his readers, who went through extreme discrimination, to speak up for themselves. Even though that racism was harsh and intense in the mid 1900s, through the Civil Rights movements, racism was softened and many barriers, that prevented blacks from doing what they wanted have been removed. If Wright was to write a book in 2018, he would write about the violence of police brutality, black’s unemployment rate, and the first black president that marked a huge victory against racism.

Richard Wright’s autobiographical novel, Black Boy, illustrates his character development. He encounters a lot of hardships which he eventually grows from. Throughout the course of the story, Richard develops from an oblivious young boy to a responsible young adult.

African American were enslaved by whites on the Southern plantation for several centuries until President lincoln won the Civil War and abolished slavery. However, the blacks did not obtain the freedom and civil rights that they have longed for after the Civil War. Instead, they were oppressed by the Jim Crow laws and lived a segregated life. Not until the Civil Right Movement in the 1960s that the blacks finally obtain some of the basic civil rights. Today, despite the fact that America has an African American president and many renowned black celebrities in the sport and the music industry, blacks still face racial prejudice and discrimination in everyday life. Richard Wright was born after the Civil War but before the Civil Right Era. If he were writing an autobiography titled Black Boy Today (2016) about a black boy growing up in the United States, he would write about racial profiling against blacks, the wide education gap between black and white, and the unequal job opportunities for blacks.

Black Boy is a denunciation of racism and his conservative, austere family. As a child growing up in the South, Richard Wright faced constant pressure to submit to white authority, as well as to his family’s violence. However, even from an early age, Richard had a spirit of rebellion. His refusal of punishments earned him harder beatings. Had he been weaker amidst the racist South, he would not have succeeded as a writer.