Jim Crow By Wright Essay, Research Paper

Jim Crow is an autobiographical account of author Richard Wright?s education

in race relations in a totally segregated south. Wright talks about his

experiences growing up in the south and the racism he encountered. He attempts

to show us what being on the receiving end of racism is really like, and the

lessons he learned from them. I believe that Wright?s intended audience seems

to be directed towards white people so that they may gain an understanding of

the hardships blacks went through early in our nations history. Wright starts

off by explaining where he grew up. The house he lived in was located behind the

railroad tracks and his ?skimpy yard was paved with cinder blocks? (600). To

see green you had to look beyond the railroad tracks to the white?s section of

town. I felt that here the author seemed to know that there was a difference

between the two, but at his young age he did not understand why the two were

different. In the first part of the article Wright describes a fight that he

gets into with some white boys and the punishment he receives from his mother

for it. His mother tells him that he is ?never, never, under any conditions,

to fight white folks again? (601). She goes on to say that he should be

thankful that the white kids didn?t kill him. I think that in telling Wright

this, his mother is teaching him that blacks are not as good as whites and that

he should be thankful that they allow blacks to exist in the same world as the

whites. Wright goes on describing different jobs he had and the dealings he had

with his white bosses. In one section the author talks about watching his white

boss drag and kick a black woman into the store where he worked. After a few

minutes the woman comes out bloody and crying. The author explains what happened

with some of his black co-workers. None of them are surprised by this and one

adds that she was lucky to just have been beaten and not raped as well. I think

the author here is showing that blacks in the early south were almost immune to

this type of racism. It is so commonplace that the blacks hardly blink when it

happens. Wright later talks about moving to a larger city and the interactions

he had with the white people there. The author explains that the whites there

were a little more accepting, and would actually hold conversations with the

blacks. The author points out that caution must be used when talking with whites

on subjects like the Ku Klux Klan, Abraham Lincoln, the civil war, and ?any

topic calling for positive knowledge or manly self-assertion on the part of the

Negro? (610), should be avoided. Throughout this article Wright talks about

learning his ?Jim Crow lessons.? Jim Crow refers to the name of a character

in minstrelsy (in which white performers in blackface used African American

stereotypes in their songs and dances); it is not known how it became a term

describing racial segregation. The term Jim Crow’s literal definition means

?separate but still equal.? I believe the author finds the part about being

equal very ironic with his title and when he mentions his ?Jim Crow

lessons.? The last part of the article describes how blacks felt about the way

they had to live. A friend of the author summed it up by saying, ?Lawd, man!

Ef it wuzn?t fer them polices ?n? them ol? lynch-mobs, there wouldn?t

be nothin? but uproar down here!? (610). With this, I believe, the author

has come to the realization that when it comes to racism, the blacks in the

south knew about it, received it frequently, and came to accept it and the

atrocities that come with it.