The Ethics Of Living Jim Crow Laws By Richard Wright

In the article, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow Laws the author Richard Wright, describes many situations throughout his life in which he has been discriminated against due to his race. Wright’s main idea in this article was to use his personal experiences to show the brutal discrimination blacks faced against whites and how it affected them.
In the first section of this article Wright tells the reader about the first time he experienced a fight against the whites. The gang in which Wright was a part of started a war with the whites. The idea of this war was to throw cinders at a wooly black head to try and knock it down while you were crouched down behind pillars. Although, during this particular war the white boys had thrown broken glass bottles

while hiding behind trees, hedges and other parts of their home, towards Wright’s team causing Wright to get badly cut on his ear. This was not the idea of this war and the whites had intentionally did this to cause harm, “It was all right to throw cinders. The greatest harm a cinder could do was leave a bruise. But broken bottles were dangerous; they left you cut, bleeding, and helpless” (Wright I). Wright went on that day to tell his mother and she responded with outrage and beat him. After this war Wright stays away from whites and says, “Even today when I think of whites folks, the hard, sharp outlines.. are present somewhere in my mind. Through the years they grew into an over-reaching symbol of fear” (Wright I). This war ultimately changed Wrights perspective of his life at a young age and shows
that there was a strong distinction about how whites treated blacks and how he viewed this in fear.
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Wright throughout this article tells stories about many of the jobs he had in which he was awfully discriminated against and mistreated. In section II of the article he tells a story about when he worked in a clothing store and witnessed his boss and his boss’s son drag, kick, and beat a Negro woman in their store He goes into the store and the boss says, “That’s what we do to niggers when they don’t want to pay their bills” (Wright II). The boss then offers Wright a cigarette and he takes it only because he knows that this means that if he says anything they will beat him as well. This situation shows that blacks felt they needed to act a certain way around whites in order to protect themselves. They feared being beaten so they chose not t o defend themselves or act how they wanted. The white people acted superior to the blacks and treated them as lesser humans.
Another story that Wright tells is about a night he is caught on the streets of a white neighborhood making deliveries. It was known to the blacks that they shouldn’t be in white neighborhoods at night although it was acceptable for whites to be in black neighborhoods at night. Wright says, “But the color of a Negro’s skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target” (Wright IV). This quote explains the that the mere difference between blacks and whites is there skin color which is unjustifiable and wrong. A police officer ordered that he got down and put his hands up. The police officer searched Wright but found nothing incriminating. Then one officer said, “Boy tell your boss not to send you out in white neighborhoods after sundown. As usual I said: Yes sir” (Wright IV) This quote shows that Wright was used to this kind of treatment when he said, “as usual”. Police officers were known to treat blacks this way during this time.

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Overall, Wrights use of personal experience helps make the cruel history of discrimination of blacks clearer to readers. It shows that blacks truly had no defense for themselves because everyone in society mistreated them and that no one fought for change until the Jim Crow laws were enacted.