Ethnic equality has always been a dream for many, but very few help pave the way for it. In the book Black Boy by Richard Wright he explores ideas such as racism, ignorance, submission, indifference, and suppression. Richard Wright, the main character of the book, experienced such ideas as these and through struggle overcame them. Richard saw the black community as contributing to the racist regime of the time through submission, suppression, and indifference.
One way blacks dealt with racism was submission, which Richard Wright strongly opposed. Shorty, the elevator operator, allowed himself to be kicked in the bottom to gain wealth from whites. Actions like these demonstrate the general attitude of blacks during the time. Most blacks were willing to sacrifice their pride to gain riches; Richard Wright was an exception to this notion. He believed that on one should submit themselves or their ideas to anyone and that doing this is only a sign of fear. Richard gave into whites" expectations of blacks and stole from his job at the theater. Richard not only found the idea of stealing repugnant, but also realized it was self-destructive to his race. "My objections to stealing were not moral. I did not approve of it because I knew that, in the long run, it was futile, that it was not an effective way to alter one's relationship to one's environment" (Wright 200). Richard had become part of the same misguided population he dreadfully despised. When Richard was approached with the idea of stealing from the theater he was too frightened to contest it. Instead of disputing it he surrendered not only physically, but all of his personal beliefs as well. Admitting defeat was only one way that held blacks back.
Suppression and censorship were ways of keeping blacks down, but Richard refused to comply with them. Richard Wright's principal refused to let Richard give his own valedictory speech and tried to get Richard to give one designed to not offend whites.
