black boy chapter 10 and 11

• Blog – What does Wright mean when he says he had ‘begun coping with the white world too late’? How does that manifest itself in these next chapters

What Wright means by his coping with the white world too late” was that he was not exposed to the cultural stereotypes as a kid nearly as much as other blacks he was around, and thus he was not conditioned to act around white people the same way that most blacks were, making it so that he did not conform to the expected prejudices of the whites in his area. As a result he was unable to act “black” around whites as he was supposed to, and as a result he endangered his life. Wright realizes that because he cannot cope with the white world he needs to get out of the south where his not coping could cost him his life. Unlike many other blacks in the south, Wright thinks about his environment, something which white southerners do not want blacks to do, and especially do not want to know about it if they are.