Richard Wright and James Baldwin
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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
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WENTY BEFO KILLED! He smiled a little. . . . Blinking the newspaper away, he looked over the fields (Wright 44).
In "Down by the Riverside," we find a similar scenario. A black man is the victim of overwhelming racism, kills in what is essentially self-defense, is hunted and captured by whites, who torment him and then kill him as he tries to escape. The message is clear that blacks will be forced into positions in which they must die or fight back, and in which they will be brutalized and killed if they do fight back. Even in death blacks find no release from the racist treatment of whites: "One of the soldiers stooped and pushed the butt of his rifle under the body and lifted it over. It rolled heavily down the wet slope, . . . one black palm sprawled limply outward and upward, trailing in the brown current" (Wright 102).
The same message of blacks at the mercy of violent white racists burns at the heart of Wright's "Long Back Song," which ends with Silas, a black man, proudly burning to death under an onslaught from a white mob, and Sarah, his black mate, running in terror across fields with her baby in her arms. Sarah's horrified call, "Naw, Gawd" (Wright 128) symbolizes the sense of injustice which rages at the center of Wr
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Approximate Word count = 1365
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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