Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Essay

"White makes right" means that the whites are never wronged for their actions whenever a white does something clearly wrong to a black while the black has done right. In fact, the blame is pushed to the blacks instead, simply because whites are perceived to be the superior race. What is counted as morally right or morally wrong depends on how society perceives it, when what is usually right or wrong should not be determined by how the majority feels towards another race, especially when they are biased. As such, this has resulted in a lot of unjust treatment towards the blacks. This can be clearly seen through three incidents: Mr Morrison's loss of a job, the burning of the Berry's and Cassie's encounter with Lillian Jean in Strawberry.

Firstly, an incident that illustrates "White makes right" is Mr Morrison's loss of a job, since he is depicted as being in the wrong although he was provoked into the fight, and he is made to bear the consequences although there are no consequences for the others, simply because of their race. Mr Morrison lost his job as he "got in a fight with some men" whose fault was "theirs". However, the other men did not get fired because "they was white". This shows that one’s actions’ consequences differs based on race. Starting a fight is clearly wrong, and as the whites were the ones who started it, it is only fair if they got fired. However, even though Mr Morrison did not start the fight, he got fired instead of the other men just because they were white and deemed superior to blacks. This shows that blacks are not allowed to start a fight without being punished regardless of the injustice targeted at them. However, whites are allowed to because of 'underlying' reasons and they will not be punished as they have 'justifiable' reasons. Thus, "white makes right" is clearly shown in this case, where we see that regardless of whether the whites do the wrong things towards the blacks, the main detrimental consequences will still be for the