Richard Wright, in Uncle Tom's Children, and James Baldwin, in Notes of a Native Son, explore a number of themes related to violent racism in the United States. Both Wright and Baldwin deal with the relentless racism of whites and the destructiveness of such racism on blacks. This study will focus on Wright's collection (four stories and an autobiographical essay) in terms of its exposure of this violent racism, with reference to Baldwin's essays where appropriate. The argument of the study will be that while racist violence is an integral part of both books, Baldwin sees in blacks' position much more power than does Wright. Wright's pieces show blacks as almost inevitable victims of white violence, with no hope for blacks to do anything but strike out in futile rage before their own destruction. Baldwin, on the other hand, argues that blacks do have power, great power, and that whites are losing a power they never really had.
In his essay "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," Wright explores white prejudice and finds that such bias keeps blacks in a state of fear and rage:
How do Negroes feel about the way they have to live?
. . . I think this question can be answered in a single sentence. A friend of mine . . . once told me: "Lawd, man! Ef it wuzn't fer them polices 'n' them ol' lynch-mobs, there wouldn't be nothin' but uproar down here!" (Wright 15).
In other words, racism so enrages blacks that if they were free to express that rage, there would be constant rioting. The only force keeping them from such rageful destruction is the greater power of whites which would be unleashed in a backlash against black rage.
Baldwin agrees with the premise that there is a great deal of hidden black rage, and that the likely white response to it if it were unleashed would be equally rageful. Baldwin says that the "myth" and "legend" of the "happy darky" is collapsing, and the result is potentially violent on both sides:
And...