I BITE TIIE HAND THAT FEEDS ME

BY RICHARD WRIGHT

w a n t to reply to Mr. David L. Cohn, of social reality, and we see Russia I whose article criticized my novel, differently. , in the May issue of the ‘He [Wright] wants not only complete Atlantic Monthly. In the eyes of the political rights for his people, but also average white American reader, his arti­ social equality, and he wants them now.’ cle made it more difficult for a Negro Certainly I want them now. And what’s (child of slaves and savages!) to answer wrong with my wanting them now? a cultured Jew (who has two thousand What guarantee have we Negroes, if we years of oppression to recommend him were ‘expedient’ for five hundred years, in giving advice to other unfortunates!) that America would extend to us a cer­ than an American white. Indeed, Mr. tificate stating that we were civilized? Cohn writes as though he were recom­ I am proud to declaim — as proud as mending his ‘two thousand years of op­ Mr. Cohn is of his two thousand years pression’ to the Negroes of America! of oppression — that at no time in the No, thank you, Mr. Cohn. I don’t think history of American politics has a Negro that we Negroes are going to have to go stood for anything but the untrammeled through with it. We might perish in the rights of human personality, his and attempt to avoid it; if so, then death as others'. men is better than two thousand years Mr. Cohn implies that as a writer I of ghetto life and seven years of Herr should look at the state of the Negro Hitler. through the lens of relativity, and not The Negro problem in America is not judge his plight in an absolute sense. beyond solution. (I write from a country That is precisely what, as an artist, I try — Mexico — where people of all races not to do. My character, , and colors live in harmony and without lives and suffers in the real world. Feel­ racial prejudices or theories of racial ing and perception, from moment to superiority. Whites and Indians live moment, are absolute, and if I dodged and work and die here, always resisting my responsibility as an artist and de­ the attempts of Anglo-Saxon tourists picted them as otherwise I’d be a traitor, and industrialists to introduce racial not to my race alone, but to humanity. hate and discrimination.) Russia has An artist deals with aspects of reality solved the problem of the Jews and that different from those which a scientist of all her other racial and national sees. M y task is not to abstract real­ minorities. Probably the Soviet solution ity, but to enhance its value. In the is not to Mr. Cohn’s liking, but I think process of objectifying emotional experi­ it is to the liking of the Jews in Russia ence in words — paint, stone, or tone — and Biro-Bidjan. I accept the Russian an artist uses his feelings in an immedi­ solution. I am proletarian and Mr. Cohn ate and absolute sense. To ask a writer is bourgeois; we live on different planes to deny the validity of his sensual per- 826 I BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS ME 827 ceptions is to ask him to be ‘expedient’ gress and threw its weight behind John enough to commit spiritual suicide for L. Lewis and the CIO! the sake of politicians. And that I ’ll I urge my race to become strong never consent to do. No motive of ‘ex­ through alliances, by joining in common pediency’ can compel me to elect to cause with other oppressed groups (and justify the ways of white America to the there are a lot of them in America, Mr. Negro; rather, my task is to weigh the Cohn!), workers, sensible Jews, farmers, effects of our civilization upon the per­ declassed intellectuals, and so forth. I sonality, as it affects it here and now. If, urge them to master the techniques of in my weighing of those effects, I reveal political, social, and economic struggle rot, pus, filth, hate, fear, guilt, and de­ and cast their lot with the millions in the generate forms of life, must I be con­ world today who are fighting for free­ signed to hell? (Yes, Bigger Thomas dom, crossing national and racial bound­ hated, but he hated because he feared. aries if necessary. Carefully, Mr. Cohn avoided all mention The unconscious basis upon which of that fact. Or does Mr. Cohn feel that most whites excuse Negro oppression is the ‘exquisite, intuitive’ treatment of as follows: (1) the Negro did not have the Negro in America does not inspire a culture when he was brought here; fear?) I wrote Native Son to show what (2) the Negro was physically inferior and manner of men and women our ‘society susceptible to diseases; (3) the Negro did of the majority’ breeds, and my aim was not resist his enslavement. These three to depict a character in terms of the falsehoods have been woven into an living tissue and texture of daily con­ ideological and moral principle to justify sciousness. And who is responsible for whatever America wants to do with the his feelings, anyway? Negro, and, whether Mr. Cohn realizes Mr. Cohn, my view of history tells me it or not, they enable him to say ‘the this: Only the strong are free. Might may Negro problem in America is actually not make right, but there is no ‘right’ insoluble.’ nation without might. That may sound But there is not one ounce of history cynical, but it is nevertheless true. If the or science to support oppression based Jew has suffered for two thousand years, upon these assumptions. then it is mainly because of his religion The Negro (just as the Mexican Indian and his other-worldliness, and he has today) possessed a rich and complex cul­ only himself to blame. The Jew had a ture when he was brought to these alien choice, just as the Negro in America has shores. He resisted oppression. And the one. We Negroes prefer to take the hint Negro, instead of being physically weak, of that great Jewish revolutionist, Karl is tough and has withstood hardships Marx, and look soberly upon the facts of that have cracked many another people. history, and organize, ally ourselves, and This, too, is history. Does it sound fight it out. Having helped to build the strange that American historians have ‘society of the majority,’ we Negroes are distorted or omitted hundreds of records not so dazzled by its preciousness that of slave revolts in America? we consider it something holy and be­ We Negroes have no religion that yond attack. We know our weakness teaches us that we are ‘God’s chosen and we know our strength, and we are people’; our sorrows cannot be soothed not going to fight America alone. We are with such illusions. What culture we did not so naive as that. The Negro in have when we were torn from Africa was America became politically mature the taken from us; we were separated when moment he realized that he could not we were brought here and forbidden fight the ‘society of the majority’ alone to speak our languages. We possess and organized the National Negro Con­ no remembered cushion of culture upon 828 THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY which we can lay our tired heads and dence, resolution, and the knowledge that, dream of our superiority. We are driven the Negro problem can and will be by the nature of our position in this solved beyond the frame of reference country into the thick of the struggle, of thought such as that found in Mr. whether we like it or not. Cohn’s article. In Native Son I tried to show that a Further in his article Mr. Cohn says man, bereft of a culture and unanchored that I do not understand that oppression by property, can travel but one path if has harmed whites as well as Negroes. he reacts positively but unthinkingly to Did I not have my character, Britten, the prizes and goals of civilization; and exhibit through page after page the that one path is emotionally blind re­ aberrations of whites who suffer from bellion. In Native Son I did not de­ oppression? Or, God forbid, does Mr. fend Bigger’s actions; I explained them Cohn agree with Britten? Did I not through depiction. And what alarms make the mob as hysterical as Bigger Mr. Cohn is not what I say Bigger is, but Thomas? Did I not ascribe the hysteria what I say made him what he is. Yes, to the same origins? The entire long white boys commit crimes, too. But scene in the furnace room is but a de­ would Mr. Cohn deny that the social piction of how warped the whites have pressure upon Negro boys is far greater become through their oppression of Ne­ than that upon white boys? And how groes. If there had been one person does it materially alter the substance of in the Dalton household who viewed my book if white boys do commit mur­ Bigger Thomas as a human being, the der? Does not Mr. Cohn remember the crime would have been solved in half an Jewish boy who shot the Nazi diplomat hour. Did not Bigger himself know that in a year or two ago? No Jewish it was the denial of his personality that revolutionist egged that boy to do that enabled him to escape detection so long? crime. Did not the Soviet officials, the The one piece of incriminating evidence moment they came into power, have to which would have solved the ‘murder clean up the roaming bands of Jewish mystery’ was Bigger’s humanity, and and Gentile youth who lived outside of the Daltons, Britten, and the newspaper society by crime, youth spawned by the men could not see or admit the living Czar’s holy belief that social, racial, and clue of Bigger’s humanity under their economic problems were ‘actually in­ very eyes! More than two thirds of Na­ soluble’? tive Son is given over to depicting the Now, let me analyze more closely just very thing which Mr. Cohn claims how much and what kind of hate is in ‘completely escapes’ me. I wonder how Native Son. Loath as I am to do this, I much of my book escaped him. have no choice. Mr. Cohn’s article, its Mr. Cohn says that Bigger’s age is not tone and slant, convince me more than stated. It is. Bigger himself tells his age anything else that I was right in the way on page 42. On page 348 it is stated I handled Negro life in Native Son. Mr. again in the official death sentence. Cohn says that the burden of my book Mr. Cohn wonders why I selected a was a preachment of hate against the Negro boy as my protagonist. To any white races. It was not. No advocacy of writer of fiction, or anyone acquainted hate is in that book. None! I wrote as with the creative process, the answer is objectively as I could of a Negro boy simple. Youth is the turning point in who hated and feared whites, hated them life, the most sensitive and volatile because he feared them. What Mr. Cohn period, the state that registers most mistook for my advocacy of hate in that vividly the impressions and experiences novel was something entirely different. of life; and an artist likes to work with In every word of that book are confi­ sensitive material. 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