The Ethics of Living Jim Crow by Richard Wright - Summary

1

Young Richard's and the other black families lived behind the railroad tracks in Arkansas, their yards strewn with cinders. One day his gang got into a fight with white kids, who used broken bottles instead of cinders for the fight. Richard was injured, and instead of consoling him his mother admonishes him for fighting white boys and beats him until he is sick with fever. From that time on the lawns and trees become a symbol of white people, then a symbol of fear.

They move to a different house in Mississippi, far from a black neighborhood. Richard gets his first job at an optical company. He is careful to be polite to the white men around him. When he carefully asks if they would teach him some of the trade like they had said they would, they become colder to Richard. Finally they bully him into leaving, accusing him of rudeness to them.

2

His second job is a porter at a clothing store. Richard's white boss and his son beat and rape a black woman for not paying rent. The whites see Richard is appalled but convey to him that he is safe as long as he knows his boundaries. The other blacks are not surprised.

3

Richard's bike tire is punctured. A white man offers to give him a ride. The car is filled with white young men, and Richard neglects to refer to them as "sir". The throw him off the truck and beat him, after which they tell him he should be grateful because other white people would have killed him.

4

Richard is in a white neighborhood after dark, and therefore stopped by a policeman. They search him and, finding nothing incriminating, release him with a warning not to repeat this behavior.

5

His next job is as a hall-boy at a hotel. It was common to wait on prostitutes in their rooms but under no circumstances could black servants look at them. Once he does and is reproached by her white client.

6

A bellboy is steady with a black maid at the hotel. They force them to marry. Their child is much lighter than either parents and they are the butt of the jokes of the white men around the hotel.

7

A black bell boy is caught with a white prostitute and is castrated.

8

The white watchman of the hotel smacks a female friend of Richard's on the backside. Richard must conceal his dismay.

9

A Roman Catholic consents to let Richard borrow books from a white library under his name. Richard must pretend that the books are for a white man for who he works, because it is unthinkable to risk letting the library patrons know their books were enjoyed by a black man.

There are many topics that are taboo in a conversation between blacks and whites.

Richard is in an elevator with his hands full and cannot remove his hat. A white man does so for him. Richard has to be careful not to imply that any white man assisted him so he pretends to fumble with the groceries to avoid responding to this.

Blacks feel rage against white behavior to them, rage that they cannot express.

Richard Wright