Richard’s grandmother was always excessively beating him. From the beginning, Richard would not subdue himself to the white man like the other black people around. The white people knew that he was different from other black men. Whites were scared because Richard challenged the system that they had created to insure white supremacy. They feared Richard, and some of the white people felt it necessary to act out their racist feelings in order to cover up their fear.
Rather than being a judge of his people, he was merely a citizen complaining about social injustices in his country. Paton’s condescending tone when speaking about the white people’s unfairness towards the blacks adds to his argumentative diction. For instance, Arthur writes, “We shift our ground again…and feel deep pity for a man who is condemned to the loneliness of being remarkable.” The words “deep pity” and “loneliness” contrast “remarkable”. When something is remarkable it is held in high esteem. The white people’s view of a black man was so low that even if he was more successful than one of them, he’d still be at the bottom of society.
He had written many works on how racial discrimination and ways of black liberation. His works, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Native Son and Invisible Man became the paradigms of the black literature during 1940s to 1950s. James was a real essential writer, who is a connecting link between the preceding and the following, in the development of black literature after the World War
In the novel, Wright constructs white racism as shaming, condescending, condemning, dominating and dehumanizing as a way of critiquing white racist mentality and its effects on the black race. This is shown in Bigger‘s encounters with Mr. Dalton, Mary and Jan, Buckley, the media and Boris Max. By setting up the racist constructions, showing their consequences and illustrating how these constructions can be transcended, Wright depicts a multilayered view of racism in America. Wright uses the character of Mr. Dalton to construct white racism as shaming. One way this is manifested in the novel is through the white gaze.
Baldwin was taunted by American prejudice against blacks and gays, so Baldwin left the United States at the4 age of twenty-four and settled in Paris, France. His move was not only the desire to distance himself from American prejudice, but to see himself and his writing beyond an African-American context. Baldwin did not want to be just a “Negro writer”. Also, he left the United States desiring to come to terms with his sexual uncertainty and leave the hopelessness that many young African American men
. . I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating” (Patton, 36). Not only was Msimangu reffering to whites abusing power, but also black men as well. Essentially he is cautioning John that the power of corruption can take over any man.
The main concern and issue in TKAM is the concept of prejudice. In the text, prejudice is represented mainly through the racial inequality in the town of Maycomb . In the text, we see Atticus' belief in treating and respecting everyone as an individual contrasted with a number of other wold views. The aspect of racism is shown when the people of Maycomb accept the testimony of an obviously corrupt white man. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”.
A native son is a product of the violence and racism that suffused the devastating social conditions in which he was raised. By no means does Wright downplay the oppression of blacks by whites, but he does demonstrate that much of the racial inequality was due to the profound lack of understanding, among both blacks and whites, of the other social group. Bigger’s misunderstanding of whites binds him to a self-fulfilling insight, because as he behaves according to what he believes is his racial destiny. An important quote that can describe the racism in the story as well as the racism during that time is when Wright writes, "We live here and they live there. We black and they white."
Prejudice is incurred by the hate we feel towards people whose customs and behaviour differ from our own; the fear of the unknown is the basis of all prejudice. Words are only powerful if we give them meaning, therefore, prejudice and racism are only powerful if society defines the fuel of racism. When Atticus states, “It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person it, it doesn’t hurt you,” (Page 108, Lee) it exemplifies his refusal to put stock in derogatory slang because he knows that only uneducated people would use such language whilst discussing the behaviour of another human being. Atticus told Scout and Jem that being called a “nigger-lover” does not matter because it has no meaning to Atticus.
This shows that perhaps some blacks still hold a grudge against whites for all they have put them through in the last century. The fact of the matter is; however, that in saying only white people are racist, they are being racist themselves, therefore disproving their statement. To say that racism is a “white person’s disease” is also factually incorrect. All of us, as humans, discriminate; it is a natural instinct which we all share. Psychologist Larry A.