A Human Services Approach to Black Boy by Richard Wright - Book Report/Review Example

Running head: BLACK BOY BY RICHARD WRIGHT A Human Service’s Approach to “Black Boy” by Richard Wright. You’re Name University Abstract Within “Black Boy” there are many areas where an interventive means is necessary to try and guarantee the stability and normalcy within this family. There are at times points where certain referrals could be made such as to counseling, or other therapeutic services that would benefit the family as a whole unit. This story defines how in the time era it was written many black families were subject to abusive and disturbing situations but through the usage of a human intervention such as with social services that exists today many of the problems that arose could have been alleviated for the boy and other family members as well. This is the focus of this paper. The conclusion shows how when an interventive methodology is utilized to assist families in different crisis’s the outcomes for the individuals’ changes dramatically. A Human Services Approach to “Black Boy” by Richard Wright. Within the novel, “Black Boy”, the conflicts between man and bigotry have caused casualties within the body of man kind, of which the novel shows black men have become victims. The only honest and most assured way to approach this area would be to provide counseling services that would help to direct personal identity and meaningfulness of life back to the black family in the novel, especially young Wright. Perhaps by doing this, the idea of being a victim in a racist society could be vanquished. However, the novel explores a variety of struggles throughout Richard Wright’s young life defining how he has been the victim of abuse from his coworkers, family, and his classmates, due to his personal beliefs, which leads him to become a victimizer himself so he has a way of releasing his own pain onto another individual. Wright depicts the victimizing tendencies of the members of his dysfunctional family. In the beginning Wright first notices something is wrong with his family when his father goes to work and never comes back. This life altering occurrence created confusion for Wright, making him unstable and untamed without restrictions. This is the initial instance where human intervention through a social means could have changed many different quality areas in young Wrights life. A referral to a youth services organization or some form of therapy to take the young boys mind off of the adverse areas in his life could have possibly promoted more positivism for him, yet it did not take place. Therefore, his life was filled with many inequalities and misunderstandings that lead to his problems and compounded the ones that already existed. The next time Wright sees his father is during court when his mother was asking him to pay child support. This is the moment that Wright feels resentment for his father when he sees his father smiling throughout the court conflict while his mother was crying. Another occasion where Wright becomes a victim is when his mother makes Wright accompany her to ask his father for money. When they were ready to ask his father for the money they found him with another woman getting “comfortable”. As Wrights’ mother asks for the money his father laughs at them and says he doesn’t have any money. When the woman that his father is with looks at Wright she says Wright was cute and that his father should give him something. This causes Wright to become embarrassed and hurt because when that woman told his father to give him something the only thing his father would give him was a nickel. The moment that Wright becomes a victim is when his father laughed and put the nickel back into his pocket. This is yet another instance where if Wright’s mother would have reported the activity of the father then child support could have been demanded to be paid by Social Services. Their lives could have been more adjusted financially and in that one idea alone it could have changed many other areas as one can not live without the necessary sustenance. Another instance, which happens throughout the novel, is the verbal actions taken toward Wright. Throughout this whole novel the readers see that his family yells at Wright at least once a day. All of that yelling has to victimize Wright because it had the reader’s attention. Through all of his trouble at home Wright turned his fear into anger and in turn became the victimizer. One instance is when he takes out razor blades and threatens to use them against his uncle. Then there was an occasion when he killed a cat just because his father told him to kill it in a sarcastic way. Another time was when he physically fought his aunt because she was trying to beat him. All of these violent outbursts and actions could have been avoided, as has been stated. If young Wright’s life was that noticeably unraveling then social services could have stepped in and placed him in a foster home away from such crazy life instances. At least then he would have had a chance of having some sense of normalcy in his childhood instead of being faced with verbal abuse, name calling, yelling, and physical violence everyday. There are many ways that Social Services could have intervened in this young boy’s life, with just the few being mentioned a mere handful. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Wright had a terrible child hood, he grew up fast and took up a first job to support his self and his family. However, when he started working he didn’t know that he was going to experience racism in such a harsh way which made him a victim again. One idea to define this fact is when Wright gets a job at an optometrist’s office and he believes that his coworkers like him as a person, yet soon he finds out that it was just a cover because the boss was there. Once Wright is left alone with the coworkers they threaten him letting Wright know that they don’t like blacks. This made Wright feel betrayed and used because the coworkers were using him just to let the boss know that they were racists. When Wright felt this way he quit the job. This is of course another instance where a referral to counseling could have possibly helped Wright adjust to the adversities of race and societal class that he was enduring. Counseling might have helped clear his mind more fluidly so that he could better deal with the racial oppression he was facing. He could have also been lead to a group activist organization that could have better facilitated the idea that race had in society at that time so he could have clearly understood without constantly feeling like a victim. One job in particular he found where he realized the true cruelty of people was at a store owned by a father and son. Wright was amazed by how other black people were letting his bosses hit them and talk to them in such an improper manner. In the first instance Wright saw the evil in his employer’s eyes when a black lady was brought to the back of the store and beat her up because she didn’t pay her bill on time. Wright’s emotions dropped when he saw the ladies blood on the floor of the store. Wright could not believe so much hate could exist in the world that someone would beat someone for no good reason. In Wright’s experiences at work he learns that in the world hate is apart of existence in which if you are not the victimizer you will be the victim and Wright was one of the victims. To conclude, even growing up as a victim can not prepare someone for the slap in the face that reality gives them when they reach adult hood. However, as has been emphasized in this research, a Social Services interventive method could have made Wright better aware of what to expect out of the world and could have prepared him as well. Yet, Wright is forced to endure these experiences on his own and only after he initially enters into the working world does he realize the extreme effect of them. For instance, due to a lack of social intervention, Wright is faced with seeing customers shouted at and slapped everyday in the one store where he works. He becomes a victim of fear due to these instances, which could have been something avoided if only proper authorities would have intervened. Ultimately due to a lack of human intervention from a government body Wright has had to learn the hard ways of life, especially living in a racist area. However it can be seen that he never lost hope and he survived through it all on his own inept abilities. Read More