The White Community In Richard Wright's Black Boy

An Alien The earth contains countless aliens. People constantly find themselves aliens amongst certain groups, whether it’s caused by a goal they have or due to a physical feature. In Richard Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy, about Richard’s journey through life in the Jim Crow south, Richard struggles to feel a sense of belonging regarding both the Black community and the white community, where he is consistently frustrated by the lack of understanding he receives from both groups. Richard is viewed as an outsider by the Black community because of his broad vision and the supposed far-fetched goals that he has constructed for himself. He is repudiated by the white community simply because his melanin is “unreasonably” high for them. Eventually,

The Jim Crow laws isolated Richard from a major part of his environment since he has a skin shade that did not match theirs. They felt that Richard is constantly challenging their authority and that’s not the way to act as a black boy. “You act around white people as if you didn’t know that they were white. And they see it” (pg.184). Richard is getting scolded by everyone he knows for the way he acts around white people, the way he answers back, and the way he is aiming for a future that is not assigned to him as a black boy. His goals are designated for whites, not people of color and it requires Richard time to comprehend what that means for his position in his society. “Our presence awoke in them no sense of shame whatever, for we blacks were not considered human anyways” (pg.202). Richard knows that he is disregarded by white people but he does not understand why his attitude infuriates them. What Richard did understand is that he can only become worthy if he resigns from this community and moves to the north where he can recreate a name for himself and thoroughly chase his

Richard doesn’t feel the need to change his goals and dreams for those who did not tolerate him. “This was the culture from which I sprang. This was the terror from which I fled” (pg.257). As Richard struggles to save up for the north, his flare of hope remains ignited, blinding him from those who try to blow it out. Richard is ultimately able to come to a denouement about who he wants to be without the influence of others scathing him. This is an imperative decision for his future since he was forced to make it on his own without having anyone commiserate with his feelings. Richard decides to move to the north with the money he collected causing his creative mindset to rise to the surface, making him more hopeful for his tomorrow. To him, community is not defined by those living around him, but it’s who he desires to be and what he chooses to do amongst those people. Community turned into his mindset and he determined that community for himself, no longer making him an