The Biggest Post In The World

Hello, Internet! I must apologize for being somewhat negligent in the posting of my blog. I’ve been in California, and I’ve been generally overwhelmed with homework and underwhelmed with time.

So, what you see here is one... Two... Three... Five questions from the past week, answered in one big MEGAPOST.

To begin, I will tackle the question of

Why is Wright so angry with his Uncle Tom?

At this point in Wright’s life, he is a very logical being. Things happen for a reason, and he needs to understand that reason before he can accept [insert thing here]. A good example of this is religion. Wright can’t accept the religion being forced on him because he has no explanation for it. Wright can’t just do something or accept something “because I told to” or “just because”. No, Wright needs a solid reason.

What does that have to do with Uncle Tom? Well, Uncle Tom wakes Wright one morning, asks him a question, and when he doesn’t like Wright’s answer, he attempts to punish Wright. This is all well and good (not), but Wright doesn’t understand why he is in trouble. And without an explanation, Wright gets mad at his uncle for hurting him unprovoked. So much of Wright’s life is “accept that you’re inferior to whites”, or “you’ll never be a writer”, or “accept jesus as your personal valet” that demanding cause from his uncle is just about all Wright can do to get around this dilemma.

Is Wright justified in refusing to say the speech?

Well, yes and no. Let’ tackle these one at a time. Like groundhogs!

Yes, Wright is justified in refusing the speech. The problem, as Wright sees it, is that blacks do whatever the whites tell them. They have no control over their own actions, for fear of getting hurt, and when they submit, they simply push themselves farther down the poop-pit. By not reading the principal’s speech, but rather reading his own, Wright is breaking this vicious cycle. He is not doing what the whites (through the principal) are telling him to do, and he is trying to further his own position by acting in accordance to his personal set of beliefs (rather than living his life to someone else’s beliefs, namely the whites).
And then there’s the no. Sure, Wright is doing the ‘morally good’ thing, the ‘warm fuzzy’ thing, but from a practical standpoint, by refusing the principal’s speech, Wright is making his own condition worse. He is attracting the negative attention of the whites, speaking out against a system which he needs (the educational system), and he is marking himself as a future muck-raker/shit-kicker. Whoo.

So I would argue that Wright is morally justified in refusing the principal’s speech, but rather than read his own speech, I think he should have just refused to speechify at all. Eat a frog and misplace your voice.

What does Wright mean when he says he had ‘begun coping with the white world too late’? How does that manifest itself in these next chapters?

Wright was brought up with very little contact with the white world. As he said in an earlier chapter, waaay back at the beginning of the book, the white kids stayed on their side and the black kids stayed on their side, and if any crossed the line, they would be beaten up. So Wright’s view of the magically terrifying racial line is that if the two sides respect the boundaries, no one gets hurt.

But the problem, as he finds out, is that the world doesn’t quite work like that. Wright finds that there really isn’t a “black side” where he can go about his business however he wants. He is always having to adjust his behavior to fit the white’s expectations. That’s not good, but even worse is the fact that he was never taught how to do this. Other people he meets along his way grew up with it and are OK with it; they just accept things for the way they are. Wright doesn’t do that, he can’t do that. He needs a rock-solid reason for these things, and can’t find one. He wasn’t as exposed to the racial divide as a kid, and thus can’t adjust his demeanor to the white world.

Is subservience a necessary part of living?

I’m not really sure how to answer this question. Partly because it’s so vague, partly because I grapple with this very question every time I get mad at society (which is happening more and more often now, I’m getting a little concerned).

In the perfect world, subservience is bad. Bad bad bad. In the perfect world, all things are equal, and all things respect that. We can do as much as we can to live in the perfect world, and for the most part subservience is something we should avoid.

The however: However, this won’t get you anywhere. I could completely NOT do all the things my teachers tell me to do, all the things my parents tell me to do, the government, the road signs along I-465, airplane flight attendants, because that’s all a form of subservience. They’re telling me what to do because they’re higher up on the authoritative ladder.

But I’m pretty sure I should do all those things. And here’s the conundrum: Subservience can get you ahead. If Wright didn’t obey the white dudes and dudette’s instructions, he would likely be dead by now. Well, he is dead now, but you know what I mean.

So subservience is one of those contradictory notions you must hold in your head at all times. It should be avoided as much as possible, but often you need to be “sub” to get ahead.