Black Boy Essay -- essays research papers

In the book Black Boy, we follow many black people in the south preserveing with many hardships. One of the most prominent problems for blacks seemed to be the "JimCrow" laws. These laws withheld blacks from society, breaking them apart from whites and making it veryhard for them to live an make up close to normal life. Black people couldnt express their own ideas at all.They had to call all white men "sirs" and all white women "maam". They couldnt act the slightest bitsuperior to whites. It was almost impossible for black people to make a decent living in the south, and they alsohad to take the abuse dealt to them by he whites without even attempting ant resistance. Blacks in thesouth also had to deal with the separation aspects of the "Jim crow" laws. They had to sit in the backside of thebuses, they had to use separate water fountains and bathrooms, they were looked upon almost like theyhad some sort of disease. These be just a few of the &quo tJim Crow" laws that the black people had to deal with.Richard was not the only one in this book dealing with racism. Allthe people around him were also coping with it also, friends co-workers and family had to facethe challenges of a racist environment. passim the book we see these other people dealing with theproblems of an extremely racist society. We also see how each person in Richards life deals with itdifferently. There are a few people and insience that stick out in my mind especially. The first one would ingest 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 269Shorty is faced with the problem ofno money, such as many other southern blacks were, and we see that he is willing to do anythingfor any amount of money." You batch kick me in the ass for a get" (269,wright) As thishappens Richard witnesses the whole thing and we can see t hat he is very disappointed in the wayShorty dealt with the situation. He cant understand how he can put himself in that kind of degradingposition, and Shorty simply answers." But a quarter cant pay for what he did to you"But we can see Shorty thinks differently.A... ...urt black skin. By this point in the book Richard learns to deal better with racism, but hestill has attitude about being enured differently then the white kids or adults.One final incident the Richard had to deal with was when he wasworking at the hotel. This incident didnt completely have to deal with him but he gotinvolved. When the door man at the hotel slapped his black girl friend in the ass as they were walking out ofthe hotel, Richard got attractive upset that he did that considering that the door guard was white. It was like hecouldnt understand how white people didnt like blacks, but yet the would use such sexual connotationstowards the black women, We see Richard react, as he stops and just loo ks at the doorman. AfterRichard 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 Richardsway of dealing with the racism change throughout the book. When he is younger we see how he cant helpbut get defensive, and as he gets older he learns to control himself better.