Black boy
... Richard’s shattered home life of arguments, hate, naivety, and illness led to his criticism of others who lived unaffected under similar conditions. His Granny once said, “If you want to go to hell, then go. But God’ll know that it was not my fault” (144). This quotation represents the family’s hostile attitudes toward one another, while still factoring in their cut-throat devotion to the lord which Richard is so reluctant to adhere to. If Richard were born to different parents and spent time in a different household, his feelings about religion, love, friendship, support, and family would probably be noticeably dissimilar. Richard’s relatives only care about him when the subject of religion arises, which has much to do with his adamant refusal to recognize any God. However, words were not the only things that hurt Richard at home, or even in the street for that matter. Family arguments were nothing compared to the physical abuse Richard endured throughout his lifetime. “I went to school, feeling that my life depended not so much upon learning as upon getting into another world of people” (122). The way to earn you a respected place on the streets was to fight, which is why Richard was subject to so much focus on violence throughout his everyday life. He eventually learned that the punishment for a wrongdoing was a whipping or a beating. The big problems relating to the violence that took over the contentment of Richard’s being were the unwritten rules pertaining to the area in which he resided. Richard was a poor, confused, black boy living in and working for a world of white men. In the 1920’s, it was considered socially acceptable for a white man to beat a black person. The racism that Richard continually encountered was almost unbearable to him. If Richard had been born in the north instead of dwelling in the prejudiced south, he would have turned out with more o...