The Ethics of Living Jim Crow

"The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" was written by Richard Wright and spoke of the lessons that most African Americans learned while growing up in times of oppression.  Not only was essay surprisingly interesting, I felt that it described what life was like for African Americans so very truthfully.  Wright didn't seem to have a problem talking about how certain situations in his life played out.  Not only was he extremely detailed, his words were very powerful.  Some of the most powerful parts of the essay were when he would say, "My Jim Crow education continued," "I was learning fast, but not quite fast enough," or "My Jim Crow education broadened and deepened."  If everyone, white or black, were living by certain ethics or morals, then there shouldn't have been any reason for African Americans to have to learn how to treat white people.

The idea of ethics came up so many times during this essay that I was able to understand that the ethics wright was discussing were nothing like the ethics society should live by today.  The essay was set up in a way that demonstrated different ways that Wright learned about how to act around white people by the many different jobs he had.  One situation Wright spoke about was when he was working in a clothing store and was polishing brass out front.  He watched his boss and his boss's son drag a woman into the store and saw that a police officer was watching the entire scene as well.  When the woman came out, she was bleeding and crying and the officer stopped her, not to ask if she was okay, but to accuse her of being drunk, when, in reality, he knew exactly what has just occurred behind closed doors.  What the police was doing was very unethical; yet, Wright couldn't say anything because he would be out of his place.  This was one of the tougher "lessons" he had to learn, but that doesn't mean that it should be considered the most unethical.

Every memory that Wright chose to write about spoke so powerfully that any reader would be astounded.  The amount of things that a white person could get away with was unbelievable.  People would twist a situation or story around in order to get an African American in trouble.  Others knew what that person was doing, but no one stopped them.  That is considered unethical in itself.  I knew African Americans were treated badly during the Jim Crow period, but I had no idea that they felt responsible for learning how to act.  They took it upon themselves to be the best they could be in the white man's eye; yet, they still couldn't get it right.  Wright was able to open my eyes to what life was actually like and he made me realize that their lives' back then were a lot more complicated than they were made out to be.