Extra Credit:the ethics of living jim crow

The Ethics of Living Jim Crow gives the perspective of a young black boy in search of jobs and dealing with white co-workers. Throughout his life he has struggled with getting beat and tormented, and trying not to be perceived in the wrong way that would make his fellow white co –workers upset with him.
As the young boy grows up behind the railroad tracks he is in a close vicinity to the white neighborhoods. When he and some of his friends get into a fight he ends up going home with three stitches in his neck. Once he tells his mother about the incident she beats him till he has a fever. She had to beat him to teach him a lesson not to get into fights with the white people because it always leads to trouble. His mother asks him, “How come yuh didn’t hide?” She said that because she already knows what danger her son could have been in and that he should never, under any circumstances, start fighting with white people. But as he grew older he needed to get a job because his mother could not support the both of them with her job. He states that, “There is but one place where a black boy who knows no trade can get a job, and that’s where the houses and faces are white, where the trees, lawns, and hedges are green.” Having different jobs such as working as a bell boy and delivery boy white people have approached him and accused him of doing things he has never done. Being cut up with beer bottles and harassed is one issue, but seeing such violence happen to another person is unacceptable. Although when people saw such abuse being conflicted on another no one would ever dare say anything, especially if a black person saw this happening.
Being harassed and trying to survive everyday without getting beaten or accused was probably one of the hardest things to accomplish in the past. Today things are very different, but what if things never changed? How would society react? People today really do not understand the actions of the past. If society never changed and black people were still considered savages and beaten for no reason the world would have one dominant race forever.
I thought the reading was interesting and it made me think of the horrible things they would do to him. He would mind his own business, and the next thing you know he is bleeding from being hit by a beer bottle or accused of no saying “mister” before someone’s name. I am glad society has changed because I would not have been able to survive such things. What people are capable of doing to each other is horrifying.