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Big Black Good Man Essay

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Recommended: A brief history of racism in america

Katrina Wagner Professor Lawrence English 101B 20 June 2023 The Evolution of Racism In America, racism will always be a controversial topic. When thinking about slavery, the Civil Rights movement, and even recent protests against racist acts, it’s hard not to think about how these events have been recognized in literature. Richard Wright was one author who documented his life during the 1900s. In 1957, Wright wrote a short story titled “Big Black Good Man” highlighting racist interactions between a white and black man in the perspective of a white man. This story shows how the white man is fighting with himself internally to stop his racist thoughts. Despite this story taking place many decades ago, the message of this story will forever be …show more content…

Many people are aware that in recent years, there have been quite a few protests against police violence and the racial bias of the justice system. The catalyst to these “Black Lives Matter” protests was a well-known act of police violence against George Floyd, who was a black man killed by Minneapolis police officers. An article from the New York Times says, “Mr. Chauvin, who is white, kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for at least eight minutes and 15 seconds, according to a Times analysis of time stamped video. Our video investigation shows that Mr. Chauvin did not remove his knee even after Mr. Floyd lost consciousness and for a full minute and 20 seconds after paramedics arrived at the scene” (Hill et al.). The purpose of this article is to highlight the inappropriate acts of these police officers. No matter the crime committed, it is not the job of the officer to kill the suspect on the spot, especially in such a gruesome way. Like the quote says, the police officer kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck even after he lost consciousness, proving that he wasn’t just trying to detain him; he wanted to injure him deeply. This event proves that no matter how long ago the Civil Rights movement was, some people will always have internalized racial bias, whether they believe it’s true or not. If these officers hadn’t had this racial bias, they would have arrested Floyd and treated him with respect. George Floyd’s death led to many “Black Lives Matter” protests and riots. While these events brought a lot of attention to the racial bias within the justice system, people in America were fighting for months

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The story represents the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon the racist world around him. Racism is so insidious that it prevents Richard from interacting normally, even with the whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect or with fellow blacks. For Richard, the true problem of racism is not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed without destroying the culture itself. “It might have been that my tardiness in learning to sense white people as "white" people came from the fact that many of my relatives were "white"-looking people. My grandmother, who was white as any "white" person, had never looked "white" to me” (Wright 23).

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