Black Boy: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

Richard walks around the city of Memphis that Monday morning after the run-in with the bootleggers, and comes upon another optician’s shop, similar to the one where he worked in Jackson. Richard rides the elevator in the large city building up to the sixth-floor shop, and speaks to the white owner, explaining that he (Richard) has experience working for Crane, an optician in Jackson, and that he only left because he was hounded off the job by ignorant white workers. The owner agrees to take on Richard as an errand boy, and Richard begins work that day, doing similar tasks to his work in Jackson, only under the less-threatening glare of whites without the overt prejudices of those in Jackson.

Richard tells Mrs. Moss that he has taken a better job at the optician’s, and she is again proud and supportive of him. She asks Richard a few days after he starts work what happened between him and Bess, and Richard explains that, although he likes Bess, he does not wish to marry her. Mrs. Moss pushes the idea of their marriage for a few more days, but after Richard threatens to leave the house because of her pressuring, Mrs. Moss brings Bess in to Richard’s room and they both apologize, saying that they like his company, and that they will leave him alone. Richard begins working harder than he has ever worked, and scrimps and saves with the ultimate goal of sending money back to his mother in Jackson. Richard also begins reading as many magazines as he can get his hands on, including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and The American Mercury.

Richard also learns about the ways that Memphis black people appease the white people they work for. Shorty, the elevator man in Richard’s building—a squat, comical fellow—often makes himself into a racial caricature in order to beg quarters from white elevator passengers. Although Richard finds this behavior abhorrent, and wonders if Shorty doesn’t hate himself for doing it, Shorty replies that he gets the quarter from most white passengers, and that he is strong enough psychologically to make fun of himself in this way.

Richard becomes friends with Shorty and other black men who work in the building in service occupations, and learns their methods for dealing with white customers. Richard himself is approached by a white, Northern customer one day in the optician’s shop, who sees that Richard is skinny and offers him money for food. Richard, however, is too proud to accept the charity, and tells the man that he is not hungry, and that he does not want the dollar. The man, confused by Richard’s refusal of his help, leaves the shop.

Another day, Richard is approached by Olin, a white foreman in the optician’s shop, who tells Richard that a young black man named Harrison, in a “rival shop” across the street, wants to fight Richard. Richard is confused by this, since he has never said anything against Harrison, and in speaking with Harrison later that day, they each realize that Olin has told the same thing to both, hoping to spark a fight between the two young men. Richard and Olin are somewhat wary of each other still, but no violence passes between them.

Then, a week later, Olin and a few other white men from the shop ask Richard if he would fight Harrison with gloves, while other white men stand around watching and betting on the action. Richard’s immediate response is not to do it, since he doesn’t want to be made “sport” of, but Harrison tells Richard that they are “made fun of by the white workers anyway,” and both Richard and Harrison could use the five dollars that Olin promises to each of the fighters. They accept the offer to fight.

The fight is held on a Saturday, and Richard and Harrison are surrounded by agitated and boisterous white men, who begin shouting when the fighting starts. Richard and Harrison start out slowly, but then begin fighting each other with greater power and pummel each other for long rounds, drawing blood. Richard and Harrison soon become enraged, mostly out of embarrassment at their white “fans,” and when the fight is called (with no decision announced), Richard takes his money and leaves, angry. He writes that he never really talks to Harrison again, and feels that he has “done something unclean” for agreeing to fight his fellow man as entertainment for whites, “something for which I could never properly atone.”