Wright - The Ethics of Living Jim Crow

1) The author is arguing that African Americans needed to follow the Jim Crow laws while living in the south.

2) The author argues this by providing different examples of his life where he had to follow the Jim Crow laws, and what would happen if he did not. He talks about how even though the Jim Crow laws existed, the blacks were treated worse than the whites, in everything that was done in the south. Wright mentions how in his first job he was supposed to be taught what the white workers were taught, but he never was. Instead his coworkers treated him worse than before, and even found excuses to beat him while at work. This showed that even though there were laws enacted to make things equal for blacks, things were not equal. He continues to talk about how these actions were also happening at the hands the police, the very authority figures that were supposed to uphold the law. He mentions two occurrences where in one case a police officer arrested a woman for being drunk, after she was beaten by two white males, and the police officer knew it. In another case Wright was illegally searched by the cops when he was delivering packages in a white neighborhood after dark. He also mentions how blacks needed to be proper around the whites while living in the south. He also mentions how even when he moved further north, the white people were not as mean but still did not treat the blacks as equal. The white people chose to only talk about certain subjects around their black co-workers.
3) If things were supposed to be equal between the blacks and whites, why did whites choose to not enter the black areas?

If whites did choose to enter into a black neighborhood, and chose to work in their area, would they still have been treated superior, or would the blacks have then been the superior ones?

4) I think it is hard for people to accept each other for who they are rather than what they are. This was especially hard during the time when the Jim Crow laws were enacted. It is a shame that even though those laws existed nothing was done to to make sure that they were enforced. These laws ended up creating a world where people needed to act a certain way. The author talks about how he needed to constantly act proper or else he would have been hurt by the white males in the community. People believe that if they are superior to other they can do as they please, and this was constantly happening. The black people never had an opportunity to be the superior ones.