EZ's Esssay

Race is something that we all have. It gives us our identity in the marathon. As we grow up, we tend to have different thoughts and opinions on these different races. Having these thoughts and ideas affects the way we tend to act toward other races. Experiences like this are revealed through Richard in “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow,” written by Richard Wright and through my own life experiences.

In “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow,” a very small and young African American boy named Richard is portrayed throughout the whole story as kind of a student who is taking a class on how to live under Jim Crow laws. Richard makes some mistakes and pays a price when he does. He learns a very painful lesson in the very beginning of the story. He is a young boy who lives in the black part of the town. One day he got into a fight with a group of white boys. Richard was throwing cinders at them. But all of a sudden, they threw a glass bottle at him. Richard was seriously hurt. He fell to the ground and cried for help but his friends ran away from him because of the fear of getting hit by a glass bottle. Luckily someone helped him up and took him to the nearest hospital where he got three stitches. When Richard came home he waited anxiously for his mother to come home to reassure him. To embrace him. When his mom came home he told her all about his experiences earlier in that day. His mom was outraged. “How come yuh didn’t hide?” she asked instead of asking are you okay. She gave him a horrible beating that he would remember for the rest of his life. His mom told him to not fight anyone let alone white people. He was never to talk back to white people, he was never to disrespect white people, he was always supposed to be inferior to black people. Richard was very shocked about the fact that he was not equal to white people.

Similarly to Richard I had experienced situations that enabled me to learn about race. Up until I was in Bangladesh to the age of 9 I used to think everyone was equal. I never questioned the meaning of race because we all were Bengali. We all were from the same country. I used to believe that we all were equal in every single way possible. But when I came to America I was just amazed to see all of these people from so many different races that had so many different views and perspectives on the world. I would still act the same way I did in Bangladesh. I was race blind. I treated everyone equally. But unlike Richard I did not learn about race the hard way. I did not get physical experience to learn about race.

And that is I think due to the civil rights movement. It gave me the ability to live, eat, be next to, stand up with, walk with, look at, share with, talk with everyone. And it gave us a chance to be friends with everyone and anyone despite their race. And I think that is one of the best achievements of mankind in all of history.