"Perhaps even a kick was better than uncertainty"

Even more so than in Part I, Wright the author – not Wright the person in the text – is speaking to us through these passages in parenthesis. Pick such a passage from this chapter and comment.


“While working in Memphis I had stood aghast as Shorty had offered himself to be kicked by the white man; but now, while working in Chicago, I was learning that perhaps even a kick was better than uncertainty… I had elected, in my fevered search for honorable adjustments to the American scene, not to submit and in doing so I had embraced the daily horror of anxiety, of tension, of eternal disquiet. I could now sympathize with- though I could never bring myself to approve- those tortured blacks who had given up and had gone to their white tormentors and had said: “Kick me, if that’s all there is for me; kick me and let me feel at home, let me have peace”” (Wright, p.265).

This is a very powerful passage Wright put in parenthesis. When he began working in Chicago he rethinks his position on blacks accepting degradation and their willingness towards it. At first when Shorty told a white man to kick him the ass for money, Wright is horrified. However now that he is in the North and is uncertain, he begins to have sympathy for blacks who lower themselves and their standards in order to get by. Wright begins to understand the intuitiveness of the black community and their ability to know what it takes to get by.