Racism in Native Sons

Racism in Native Son

"Racism exists when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable" (Fredrickson). Racism affects all types of people- from African descent, Asian, Latin, and even European. When using the phrase "that's racist", the most common race that people think it is aimed towards is African-American. African-Americans have had it hard since the slave era. After dealing with the hardships and finally escaping those times, they had to deal with racism still in the early 20th century. Even to this day, although not nearly to the degree but still prevalent enough to notice, racism is everywhere.

In the story Native Son by Richard Wright, Bigger Thomas, a 19 year old African-American male, is under the pressure of the racism in the 1930s- where this story takes place. His goal is to go against the mainstream idea of the typical "negro"-a good-for-nothing useless corpse walking the earth. At the time, in the 1930s, there were two distinct groups, as seen by society. There were the black savages and the cultured and sophisticated, rich whites. The upper class, being the caucasians, looked at the blacks very lowly. They assumed that they were not very intelligent and they would never make it very far in life, compared to white people. Bigger, however, was not like many typical blacks. He was very intelligent and knew how to work his way around a white person. He wanted to, mainly for his family, go against the mainstream and make something of himself. In the novel Native Son by Richard Wright, racism is very prevalent and Bigger's goal was to set the whites' mindsets straight.

In book one, Bigger is in the theatre watching a film. "Was what he heard about rich white people really true? Was he going to work for people like you saw in the movies...? He looked at Trader Horn unfold and saw pictures of naked black men and women whirling in the wild dances..." (Wright book 1). As he is regarding the film, he is contemplating to himself the job opportunity presented to him as the Daltons' chauffeur. Growing up with just his black family in small living quarters, he had not had much contact with white people in the outside world. Watching the film is the first real insight into what the lives of white people were like, and he doesn't have much knowledge to compare to anything else to, so he can't quite grasp the concept of what white people were really like. On a side note shows well how pop culture can put people in unwanted spotlights. The movie screen is showing a scene of black savages dancing in a jungle. Bigger then takes this and twists it, now envisioning a chic cocktail party for whites. This part of book one really shows how America was at the time and how racism affected everything. Wright expresses how there were two distinct