Cultural Heritage

While Wright's mother and Aunt Maggie worked all day cooking for white families, he and his brother were left at home to do whatever pleased them. They were given money everyday and each day they went to a grocery owned by a Jew. He had never seen a Jew in his life up until this point and says "the proprietor of the corner grocery was a strange thing in my life". He says that people in his neighborhood hated Jews not because of the way they were treated by them, but instead because Sunday school taught them that Jews were "Christ killers". Jews were seen as a separate group from them and they singled them out and ridiculed them in ways such as chanting rude things. Wright and other kids were taught to hate Jews by their parents and that it was part of their "cultural heritage". Wright had seen many bad things happen to black people, such as Hoskins getting killed for no reason, and doesn't trust white people and he's kind of used to bad treatment of other people. Also, because blacks were the victims of this hatred, they needed a scapegoat. Black parents and children didn't see any harm in this because of how they are treated.