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Jim Wright's Ethics Of Living Jim Crow

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During the time period after the Civil War, when Jim Crow laws and de facto segregation was the norm across the United States and especially in the heart of the south, racial etiquette was also a commonly observed and enforced part of society. Existing even during and prior to the Civil War, racial etiquette was never an official set of written rules enforced by the law, rather specific expectations and a set of societal rules for African Americans from white people of how to speak and act, particularly to and in front of whites. Although public segregation was legalized and enforced by law, disobeying these unwritten societal codes would also have consequences for African Americans who did not follow them to a tee or were even simply accused …show more content…

Given the countless descriptions of events in his life within his writings relating to his experiences compared to other sources going into depth about racial rules and etiquette, it can be concluded that Wright’s personal experiences with racial etiquette was typical, rather than atypical, with those of other African Americans for the time period. In the beginning, Wright describes his very first encounters with racial etiquette placed upon him from an early age, when previously, he had absolutely no experiences in his childhood up until that moment. His first lesson in this he would follow in his lifetime was not taught to him by white people, despite coming being hit in the head with a broken bottle by a white kid. Rather, it was instilled early on by his family, and more specifically, his mother. He had told his mother about what had happened that day and in response, she had beaten Wright to the point of a fever, telling him to never fight white people again and that the white people were “right” for harming him and he should express gratitude that they …show more content…

However, these rules remain primarily unspoken with the expectation to already know them and how to act. Wright describes his own surprise with his experiences and with how others are treated, though, his black peers around him are not surprised. Similar to his mother’s outlook when he was first assaulted as a kid, the people around him often comment how someone was in luck by not having more happen to them. For example, Wright recalls this happening once, bystanding as an accused black woman was beaten senseless until she could barely walk, only to then be arrested by a waiting police officer on the account of “looking drunk”. Wright’s peers mention she should feel lucky she had not been raped or had something worse happen. This also occurs when one of the bell boys had been caught sleeping with a white prostitute and punished via castration. He comments, “We were given to understand that the boy who had been castrated was a "mighty, mighty lucky bastard" (Wright 564). Although, more commonly, racial etiquette primarily played a role in addressing white people as superiors or with utmost respect. For Wright and the rest of his peers, this meant using titles

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Black and brown people are seen as savages, uncivilized individuals not even seen as people. This kind of attitude thrived in white communities during the Jim Crow era. The attitudes of racist whites towards black people, held an esteem of white supremacy, used violent enforcement onto black individuals and held a low regard of black men ‘targeting’ white women, despite the fact that many white men had black women as a mistress. As seen with Sherriff Deputy Fox, in Anne Moody’s memoir, he has a young mistress that he takes advantage of behind his wife’s back. “Just about every young white man in Centreville had a Negro lover.

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Segregation in the American South has not always been as easy as determining black and white. In C. Vann Woodward’s book, “The Strange Career of Jim Crow” post-civil war in Southern America has truly brought the “Jim Crow” laws into light and the ultimate formation of segregation in the south. The book determines that there is no solid segregation in the south for years rather than several decades following the end of the American Civil War in 1865 where the South achieved a better stand on segregation and equality as compared to the North at this time. Racial segregation in the form of Jim Crow laws that divided the White Americans from the African Americans in almost every sense of daily life did not appear with the end of slavery but towards

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“She would impart to me gems of Jim Crow wisdom” (Wright 2). In “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow,” Richard Wright, speaks of his own experiences growing up in the half century after slavery ended, and how the Jim Crow laws had an effect on them. Wright’s experiences support the idea that a black person could not live a life relatively free of conflict even if they adhered to the ethics of Jim Crow. The first experience that Wright describes came when he was only a young boy living in Arkansas. He and his friends had been throwing cinder blocks and they found themselves in a ‘war’ against a group of white boys.

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In this quote, Wright uses the language of superiority and inferiority to show racism. The contrast that Wright makes between the "white folks" who act as if they are superior and the "black folks" who acknowledge their inferiority shows the ways in which racism can divide people into categories of "us" and "them". Using diction, Wright allows readers to understand the ways that racism continues systems of oppression and inequalities in society. This quote furthers the central idea that it is a struggle to find oneself in a world of racism by highlighting the pressure that racism puts on people to conform to its expectations. Later in the text, Wright uses diction when he says "The white people of the South had created a system of oppression so rigid, so all-encompassing, that it touched every aspect of life" (Wright 25).

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Lastly violence is an overarching compelling force in Wright’s life. From a young age the threat of physical violence put forth upon Wright by the people he associates with is used as a form of indoctrination, in order to force him into a certain mindset or actions. For example, after Wright’s unwillingness to go to the grocery store, because of the potential danger that lurked outside, his mother tells him that, “ if you come back into this house without those groceries, I’ll whip you” (Wright 31). It is only after his mother threatened him that Wright is forced to go out and bring home the groceries. The violence as a disciplinary action concept is also seen in Wright’s life as well.

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Applying this concept, Wright’s act of violence symbolizes how he was willing to oppose power when he saw it as oppressive, even if it came from an extremely authoritative figure with a lot of power, like his father. By using violence, Wright showed how he could still protest even when he thought that his father was oppressing him. Wright supports this when he later states, “I was happy because I had at last found a way to throw my criticism of him into his face... I had made him know that I felt he was cruel” (Wright 12). This is significant because it shows how Wright’s anger was fuelled by what he saw as injustice, as seen by how he thinks that his father was unnecessarily cruel.

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The life of Richard Wright, was not that of a simple one. Since day one of his life, things would always be complicated for him, and not just because he was black in the early 20th century. He is brought up in a rough domestic life and was more often than not in poverty. He wasn’t taken seriously because of his color, but proved all the doubters wrong. Wright handled every obstacle in his path, maybe not always elegantly, but he overcame it in a way he could feel satisfied with.

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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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