Wright's Dislike of Jews

Wright and other black children at this time disliked Jews due to the fact that they were the recipients of an extreme amount of hatred and prejudice from white people. Taunting and mocking Jews was an easy way for the children to release their frustration for the way they were treated by white people. They could not easily repay the white people in kind for their prejudice due to the fact that white's were the power group. Wright and others in his situation live in a state of perpetual fear of white people and thus they cannot treat the whites as they themselves are treated. Instead they mock Jews, whom they do not fear will lynch them. This affords Wright and the other children a feeling of power they do not usually enjoy. Several of Wright's experiences predispose him to such action. For instance, his mother remained frustratingly opaque in her descriptions about race relations, in an attempt to protect Wright from the harsh realities of race conflicts. While this is something Wright has taken for granted, he begins to question the motives of white people who perpetuate violence and he wonders about his own place in the grand scheme of things. Wright is woefully ignorant about race relations, and thus he could not be expected to understand that what he was doing was wrong.