The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch

Richard Wright

 

Richard Wright, a renowned African American author who is included in The Best American Essays of the Century, distinguishes what it is like to live in a world of racial indifference. In his essay, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch, Wright enables younger generations and unmoved readers to grasp the distress that African Americans had faced throughout the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.

In guiding readers to recognize the mistreatment of African Americans, Richard Wright incorporates several anecdotes. An anecdote is a short synopsis of a particular event in one’s life. As a young boy, Wright lived in Arkansas where the characteristics differing between the white and black sides of town were quite distinct. He reflected on an incident where a child from the other side of town had caused him pain. When he shared what had happened to his mother, she replied, “How come yuh didn’t hide?” (Wright 160). In addition, his mother had beat him because she was upset that he had even been involved. By bringing up a memory of his past, Wright proves to the audience the harsh treatment that African Americans received. The narrative not only shows what pain the white child had caused him, but the resulting pain he accepted from his mother. After being a victim, he had to welcome a wrong idea that it was his fault for standing up against the white children. His mother, out of fear from white people, had her son take blame for such an event. In sharing such personal details, Wright fulfills his desire to bring recognition to the suffrage of African Americans. Richard Wright faced physical pain, as well as emotional suffering which is clear when looking at this episode of his life.

Richard Wright successfully implemented a message to readers on the ill actions towards African Americans. Readers from a younger generation can identify how poorly African Americans were treated. Today it is a crime to discriminate based off of race, so to those who have never experienced discrimination it is eye opening. In reading of his first confrontation with a white child, readers feel for Wright. The vivid details of being hurt first by a white child, and then again by his mother for engaging with a white child, allows realization of how horrific this time in history was. Richard Wright had significantly achieved his purpose of bringing awareness as to how African Americans were treated.

 

The Other Side of Town (credits to Arthur S. Siegel)