The Trial Of Bigger Thomas And How It Depicts The Ills Of Racism In The Native Son (Essay Sample)

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English
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The Trial of Bigger Thomas
Racial differences which created a feeling of superiority among the whites in their view of the blacks in America also impacted many aspects of the judicial systems. In response to a crime, the press, white-dominated, was used to incite a mob hatred against the perpetrators of social evils. The corrective mechanisms of the judicial system were always skewed to favor the philosophy of the whites. Bigger was excessively depicted as a bestial, rapist and a murderer of a white lady and the two aspects: the white mob fury and the vicious portrayal of Bigger has a rapist helped the white justify terrorizing the blacks in the South Side to frighten them. Wright successfully shows how irrational logic of racism can effectively be used to create a vicious cycle of racism over and over again.
Even before Bigger ids arrested and tried, Richard Wright successfully portrays his daily live as a prison. He alongside with his brother, sister and mother live in a crowded and rat-infested apartment that is in some sense a prison. Bigger’s conscience is also imprisoned when he is imprisoned in urban ghetto by rental policies borne out of racial differences, he senses failure, unrelenting fear and inadequacy that shatters his entire life. The fact that they stay in a racists white society causes Bigger and his mother to believe that his fate at the trial would end badly. Bigger’s attitude regarding his relentless conviction and that he was to face a disastrous fate is a clear indication that he believed that he had absolutely no control over his life. He could only gain access to menial jobs, inadequate and poor housing and little opportunity for education which pushes him to endure a substandard life.
However, there are a few characters that are eager and thrilled to break the social taboos. Quite surprisingly, Jan and Mary, both white, seem to get strange satisfaction from eating together with Bigger in a black restaurant. No doubt they want to experience the “blackness” although they do not have an understanding of the hopelessness and frustration that makes blackness for Bigger. Although Jan and Mary entertain themselves by slumming with Bigger in the ghetto, they are blind to the social reality with which a black Bigger is confronted. The said assertion is clearly indicated by Mary who uses the same racist language to describe black American just like racists such as Peggy. Mary, when talking to Bigger, repeatedly uses phrases such as “your people”, “them” and “they” when referring to black people. These phrases or words suggest that black Americans are alien, foreigner, somewhat separate people and a different class of people. When Mary uses the phrase, “our country”, she suggests that America belongs to the whites and later maintains that there exists a psychological difference between the black and white Americans. That was regardless of her recognition of Bigger’s feelings which seemed not to have made her think the “We’re human.”
Bigger’s trial is not fair. Wright portrays the American judicial process as being skewed towards a certain race. The media also has a role in determining the popular conceptions of justice. The trail is considered unfair as from the start because the proceedings are only but a spectacle. The deciding of the guilt and punishment is done before the trial can begin, somehow even before he is arrested. In the media houses, the newspapers refer to him as a “Negro Rapist and Murderer” instead of referring to him as a suspect or the accused. It is quite obvious that Bigger will be sentenced to death although the public still feels the urge to witness the motions of the justice. The public tries as much as possible to build its case against Bigger as a rapist while at the same time creates an illusion of equal treatment under the law to deny its racism. According to the arguments of Max, there is an aspect of guilt attached to this hate-fueled hysteria, an empowered majority trying to deny its responsibility in Bigger’s crime. The claim of equality under the law hides the writhing economic equality that has forced Juma into hopelessness, poverty in urban suburbs and menial lo...