Black Metropolis

“They hate him for revealing the shaky, class foundations of their society, for reminding them of their sundered consciousness, for flaunting their hypocrisy, for sneering at their hesitations, for manipulating their racial hatreds to a degree that they had never dared.”(page xxiv). According to Richard Wright’s Black Metropolis, America’s attitudes and actions toward “Negroes” in post slavery times much resembled Hitler and his Nazi regime during World War II. Wright intensifies his presentation of the problem in America by frequently cataloging the feelings and plights of the African Americans. The piece has an unmistakable tone of dissent throughout its entirety and Wright’s view point is made very clear. However his purpose of bringing attention to the mistreatment of African Americans becomes slightly overshadowed by the end of the piece due to his criticism of the white citizens. Instead of focusing on the hardships of black citizens, Wright begins to waiver toward the end of the passage. The focus becomes shifted to blaming and generalizing white Americans and even to comparing them to Hitler. While there is no doubt in my mind that a vast majority of white Americans severely mistreated blacks, this shift ultimately detracts from the original point. The beginning of the piece translates Wright’s feelings much more effectively due to his intense descriptions. This stirring of emotion holds much more weight with the reader than the end of the passage which seems to digress and lose its effectiveness in some parts. The approach of pulling the reader into the heart of the problem is much more telling than involving him in an endless cycle of blame.