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A number of factors usually shape how we relate with those around us and our environment, resulting in what we define as out own identity. An important factor that actively serves to shape our identity and its definition is race. Richard Wright’s interactions, confrontations and relationships in “Black Boy” perfectly illustrates this point, as being born in a black family in a society that practices racial segregation, particular when it comes to black and white interactions, serves to predetermine Wright’s fate not just as a writer but also as a human being. Race or ethnic background therefore shape not just an individual’s identity, but also their prospects in life either negatively or positively
“Black Boy” an autobiography of Richard Wright, describes his life, starting with his Grandmother’s illness and his burning of the family house in Natchez as a four year old. Wright describes the hardships they go through after his father leaves the family for someone else as well as after his mother becomes ill and cannot fend for them anymore. These hardships actually result in Wright not being able to effectively attend school until after they move to Jackson Mississippi, where he is actually able to graduate from ninth grade as the valedictorian. Afterwards Wright ventures in to the adult world of employment, where he encounters numerous episodes of racism, some even violent. Richard works at a clothing store, two optical shops, a movie theater, a corrupt insurance agency and a café. He is then forced out of work due to the great depression and begins pursuing a career as a writer for a communist Party, a venture which does not really turn out as he would have liked, although he is not discouraged and continues to seriously pursue writing.
In each chapter, Wright narrates a different difficult encounter and how it served to shape his identity and turned him into what he became. In chapter one, Richard begins to understand the type of relationship that exists between black people and white people, when he hears of how a white man beat up a black boy, as such he develops a fear of white people, in addition to the resentment he already feels after observing the well fed white family his mother had taken him to. In chapter two, the fact that Richard is unable to understand why the train is divided according to race, fuels his curiosity about race and ancestry, to the point where he asks his mother who responds by saying “They’ll call you a colored man when you grow up. Do you mind, Mr. Wright?” (Wright 49). His curiosity and knowledge of the existing racial differences are further fueled by his observation of white guards guarding the black prisoners. This affects his willingness to sell his dog to a white woman, with these mixed emotions towards the white race being fuelled further by stories told of a black woman who exacted revenge on a white mob for killing her husband. In chapter three, the clear distinction between whites and blacks continues to appear to Richard as he makes friends in Arkansas with other black boys who seem to share the same hostility towards white people as he does. In addition he seems to develop a sense of racial pride, which sees him engage in fights between back boys and white boys, with one fight leaving him needing stitches, he however underlines how important this new found gang was important to him when he says “I promised my mother I would not fight, but I knew if I kept my word I would lose my standing in the gang, and the gang is my life.” (Wright 83). Chapter five sees Richard enroll in a new school, where he discovers the political side of the differences between whites and blacks, after selling a newspaper and discovering that they contain messages by the Ku Klux Clan, which prompts him to stop selling them.
The construct of the place of a black man in society continuous to dawn on Richard when in chapter six he gets a job with a white family but is forced to eat bad food, compared to the white family and constantly mocked by the woman who gave him the job over having hopes of becoming a writer and attending school. A second job with another white family also goes similarly. The knowledge of the killing of a black man due to what the whites suspected was collusion with a white prostitute, further underlines what Richard now understands as the white oppression of the black man. Chapter eight actually culminates with Wright giving a controversial speech completely disregarding the instructions of the principal to give a speech written for him in order not to unsettle the whites present at the ceremony.
Subsequent chapters which focus on his adult work life, are fraught with instances of unfair treatment meted out on Richard due to his skin color; with each of these instances encountered serving to strengthen his resolve to remain proud as a black man and detest the white population for what he clearly feels is unfair and oppressive treatment of the blacks. A good example is when he helplessly witnesses his boss and his son beating up a black woman and proceeding to tell him “That’s what we do to niggers who don’t pay their bills,” (Wright 184).
During his formative years, Richard’s encounters with racism serve to shape him into a rebellious individual who seems to resent authority as well as whites. Race therefore plays a very important role in determining his identity as he constantly felt the need to challenge the set norms when it came to how the different races were to behave. In addition, the opportunities that he has to succeed in life are quite limited, as aptly captured by his own admission that “I had once tried to write, had once reveled in feeling, had let my crude imagination roam, but the impulse to dream had been slowly beaten out of me by experience”. In fact, even Richard Wright himself underlines the effect that race has on people when he says “The fact of the separation of white and black was clear to me; it was its effect upon the personalities of the people that stumped and dismayed me.” (Wright 265) Perhaps an indication of his feeling of resignation to accepting the undoubted fact that an individual’s skin color did and still has massive influence over how they turn out.
Personally, being from Turkey means that I cannot claim to have experienced issues of race on a scale similar to those experienced by Richard Wright, although being a predominantly Muslim society, my ethnic background has played an integral role in shaping my identity. It has also affected how I relate with others as well as my opportunities, more so in the United States. Individually, my ethnic background has shaped my identity more so when it comes to gender. Within the Muslim community, there are clear distinctions when it comes to the gender roles. Growing up under these constructs has served to shape me into a traditionalist who believes in the set roles and norms, more so when it comes to behavior that is considered acceptable for a man or a woman. This belief in Islam has also affected how I relate with other people as well as how I interact with my environment. It is therefore possible to argue that indeed my ethnic background has played a huge role in shaping my identity as an individual. Further, I also believe it has to an extent affected my ambitions, as the society within which I grew up in essentially predetermined what roles I would be allowed to play within the society, as such, certain professions were definitely out of the question for me personally, therefore paving a clear path as to what I could and could not do career wise, essentially curtailing any other ambitions I might have otherwise had. Race or ethnic background therefore does play an important role in shaping our identities as well as our prospects right from childhood.
Work Cited
Wright, Richard. Black Boy. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1998. Print
