Police Brutality In Richard Wright's Black Boy

Black Boy 2017 In the autobiography, “Black Boy” by Richard Wright, describes the life of a poor, hungry young black boy who seeks for a better life. Wright was born after the Civil War but before the civil rights movement. If he were to write an autobiography today in 2017, about a black boy growing up in the United States, he would write about the negative effects of police brutality, how African Americans are still divided in education, and why African American unemployment is twice the rate of whites.
Wright would include the negative effects of police brutality because it has caught the attention of our community this past decade due to the technology we now possess. According to the article “Racial profiling has destroyed public trust in police. Cops or exploiting our weak laws against it” by Ranjana Natarajan, police brutality continues to happen to people based on religion and ethnicity. Our laws are supposed to provide equal treatment to all people under the Constitution of the United States. In another
article, “KING: Black Lives Matter opposes police brutality, not police” by Shaun King, King states that he has received a poor reputation due to the people's opinions that he is a police hater. King is a man who feels discriminated against while doing the right thing, which is to speak up and realize America has one of the highest death rates because of police. He does not hate police; he just wants an improved system and hopes our government will do more about police brutality. Wright would still feel sympathy for the victims of police brutality but would react differently than our generation. Wright had grown up to his brothers being beaten and killed by police, and police would be let off easy due to a corrupt system that favors the white community. Our generation is not used to this because we know that what happened in the past was morally wrong. However, in the past, there was no evidence to prove incidents of police brutality -just stories. But now we can monitor police because of cell phones and monitor our cameras on every block. in general. Police brutality cannot get away as it had in past.
Another topic Wright would write about is how African Americans are still divided when it comes to education. In the article, “African American students lagging far behind” by Lauren Camera, Camera states that there is a decrease in test scores in “STEM” categories. For example, nearly 18% of African Americans 4th graders who were “proficient” in certain subjects decreases to only 2% in 8th grade, compared to an average of 35% of other children who were skilled on the same subjects. In another article, “Racism in schools is pushing black families to homeschool their children” by Ama Mazama, Mazama states that the number of African Americans being homeschooled is the fastest-increasing form of education among other ethnicities due to white racism. Wright would able to relate to these kids because he too faced bullies and racism throughout his education, and he would wish these boys the best of luck and to chase their dreams like he did, without letting anyone get in his way. Lastly, Wright would discuss why African American unemployment rates are twice a number of whites.
In 2015, the rate for African American employment was 9.5% compared to 4.5% for whites. The article, “Education Gaps Don't Fully Explain Why Black Unemployment Is So High” by Gillian White, provides data over the years on how African American unemployment rates have always been historically higher. For example, in 2011 the percentage of white people who did not attend college was 6.9%, while the percentage of African Americans who did not attend was severely higher at 16.1%. Another article, “Black unemployment rate is consistently twice that of whites” by Drew Desilver, provides more evidence that African American unemployment from 1954-2013 has always been twice as high as white unemployment. Wright would feel with upset with society for letting this happen and not providing the necessary means to decrease the rates of African American
unemployment. In conclusion, if Wright were to write an autobiography today in 2017, about Black Boy growing up in the United States, he would write about the negative effects of Police Brutality, how African Americans are still divided in Education, and why African Americans unemployment is twice the rate of whites. In the past, African Americans were beaten up and killed when standing up for what they believed in. Whites viewed them as if they were a dog in the streets. Now it's a new age, Africans Americans have improved economically, and socially, what happened in the past, only encourages this community to reach for things that haven't been done before. Although racism still exists, Richard Wright can now sleep better at night knowing that things are improving and will continue to.