Racial Inequality In The Law

How Literature Voices Racial Inequality in the Law For centuries, racism has existed within, and has played a large part in the development of, society. While racism has lessened as a whole throughout the years, it still very much exists today. It is not simply found in people, but in the law as well. Often, throughout history, it can be found that the law favors white people over colored people. This belief has been expressed many times by writers through their works. Poets that shined during the Harlem Renaissance frequently voiced these injustices, such as Langston Hughes and his poem, Ballad of the Landlord. Even works based on that time period include a message or theme on racism, as seen with The Piano Lesson, written by August Wilson.
Early into the play, Boy Willie tells his two uncles, Wining Boy and Doaker, of why he and his friend, Lymon, have come up North to Pittsburgh. Then, after Boy Willie says how there is no difference between the white man and the black man, Wining Boy tells a story on how the white man has control over the law. August Wilson utilizes an anecdote in order to deliver this message to the reader. “Now you take and eat some berries. They taste real good to you. So you say I’m gonna go out and get me a whole pot of these berries and cook them up to make a pie or whatever. But you ain’t looked to see them berries is sitting in the white fellow’s yard. Ain’t got no fence around them. You figure anybody want something they’d fence it in. Alright. Now the white man come along and say that’s my land. Therefore everything that grow on it belong to me. He tell the sheriff, ‘I want you to put this [n*****] in jail as a warning to all other [n******].
. . So, he sell the land to you. And he comes to you and say, ‘John, you own the land. It’s all yours now. But them is my berries. And come time to pick them I’m gonna send my boys over. You got the land…but them berries, I’m gonna keep them. They mine.’ And he go and fix it with the law that them is his berries. Now that’s the difference between the colored man and the white man. The colored man can’t fix nothing with the law” (Wilson 1.2.38). Wilson’s anecdote, voiced through Wining Boy, displays an example of the racial standing that both blacks and whites have in the country. During the time of the play’s setting, a white man could go to a sheriff or police officer and have a black man arrested with relative ease. However, the same could not be said for the black man, as they would likely be in trouble for attempting to have a white man arrested. A white man could also have something made legally their possession even if it were technically owned by a black man, but the black man could not do this to a white man. Despite slavery being over by this time period, the superiority held by whites over blacks still stood strong, which caused great inequality in the law as it favored white people. Shortly after Wining Boy tells his