Is communism the "solution"?
As James Baldwin argued, Native Son is a protest novel. Whether this fact inherently makes the book a failure to convey the complexity of race relations in America, I don’t really know. Richard Wright’s political intentions are obvious though, and in class we sort of fleshed out what he might be protesting. And while we briefly touched on it, I want to explore the idea that Wright is proposing communism as a “solution” to what he’s protesting. And perhaps this would not be surprising, as Wright supported the communist party at the time of the novel’s publication. As a relevant side note, I’ve kind of debated whether it’s fair to talk about “solutions” to large social problems. From a personal standpoint, I’ve generally considered myself to be an analytical person, especially considering how my engineer father looks for a way to make literally anything more efficient. Then when I first attended a social justice meeting, I found the discussion very unusual and kind of unsubstantial. Now ...