The Black Plague (in Today's Society)

"To them I'm nothing but a black rat son of a bitch" says Bigger Thomas during the opening of Native Son. As I was flipping through the program of the show, I came along some show pretext that elaborated on the meaning of Native Son with today's remnants of racist ideologies.

"My son is not a rapist or a murderer, I didn't raise him that way" says Bigger's Mother upon learning of his arrest warrant. These are often the negative connotations that are associated with young black men living in America. These preconceived notions of this specific group of people lead to unsolicited acts of violence that are committed against them.

"I hope they catch Bigger, I can't go out, it's too dangerous with the mobs" says a black citizen when discussing the innocence of Bigger Thomas. The mobs he is referring to are mobs of white citizens who have turned the case of Bigger into a racial conflict, punishing anyone who stands in their way, particularly black citizens. I found it ironic that today the opposite is common, protesters who are primarily black in the streets fighting for justice and being attacked by white police officers. But the similarity lies in the brutality towards the black citizen. This racial conflict in Native Son brings light to similar racial conflicts in today's society.

Bigger finds himself in a situation where he felt scared. In the room of Mary, a rich white girl who he chauffeured, Bigger acted quickly to avoid a confrontation with her mother. In two of today's most talked about racial conflicts, the case of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, confrontational situations led to their deaths. While both cases were misunderstandings (depending on the way that you view each case), the reality is that in both situations, the confrontation between an unarmed black person and an armed white person led to the death of the black person. Perhaps it was the fear of a situation like this that led Bigger to murder to save his own death. Nonetheless, this still makes Bigger a killer regardless of the pretext in which he acted.

However, even though the case of a black murderer does not equate to the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, the racial tensions that are involved in both cases are the same. The racial tensions that existed in 1940s Chicago are still present in today's modern America. Cold-blooded killer or innocent civilian, both black personas are grouped into the same category--the black rat son of a bitch.

Note: Play quotations are written verbatim.