Wright Cultural Heritage

Wright talks about how he and the black people in his neighborhood hated Jews. The reason they hated the Jews was not because the Jews exploited them, but was because of religion. The blacks were taught that all Jews were “Christ killers” since they killed Jesus. Wright says that this thinking was part of his living and emotional life. The growing hatred for the white people and Jews had been implanted into his mind because of his family background or his ‘cultural heritage.’ He would feel hatred and tension whenever whites were mentioned. It would cause him to react emotionally without reason to some sort of natural threat “whose hostile behavior could not be predicted”.

Even though Wright never had been a victim or accused by white people, he still had negative feelings towards them. He mistrusted whites just like they mistrusted him because they were from different races. Wright had several experiences that confirmed this racism. He witnessed how when Uncle Hoskins was killed by white people the blacks had no recourse. There was no law to punish these white men who ruthlessly killed Hoskins just to acquire his liquor business. His family had to flee leaving all their belongings and land behind for fear that they too would be killed. Wright starts to learn how it is acceptable for white people to kill black men and that when the black men are killed, there is generally not a funeral and the wife could not see her husband’s body. His fear of white people starts to grow particularly after his Aunt Maggie’s boyfriend, Professor Matthews, set a white person’s house on fire and killed someone. Aunt Maggie and Professor Matthews had to sneak away and Wright’s whole family had to pretend that they knew nothing. When these things happened, it always resulted in Wright having to move. It also caused Wright to say that he would kill whites if they ever threatened him. He was aware that “the dread of white people now came to live permanently” in his feelings and imagination; he felt the “pressure of hate and threat that stemmed from invisible whites.”