Subservience

Subservience is definitely a necessary part of living. Subservience is when you obey others without questioning what they are telling you to do or how they are telling you to act. This is shown many times throughout Black Boy because Richard Wright is forced to do what the white people ask him to. For example, Shorty is one of the  few black men that works where Wright works. In order to get a quarter Shorty allows a white man to kick his butt. He did what the white man wanted and because of it he gained a quarter. Another example is when Richard and Harrison fought because the white men told them that they had to. Even though Richard did not want to fight Harrison, because he did not actually have any conflict with him, they fought. I think that this is a necessary part of living because at one point in your life you are going to have to do what someone asks of you regardless of if you want to or not. I think that this was a very prominent characteristic of black people during Wrights time because their society told them this was how they must treat white people.