Black Boy

by Richard Wright

“But I can’t milk a cow, ma’am,” I said. “Where are you from?” she asked incredulously. “Here in Jackson,” I said. “You mean to stand there, nigger, and tell me that you live in Jackson and don’t know how to milk a cow?” she demanded in surprise. I said nothing, but I was quickly learning the reality—a Negro’s reality—of the white world. One woman had assumed that I would tell her if I stole, and now this woman was amazed that I could not milk a cow, I, a nigger who dared live in Jackson…They were all turning out to be alike, differing only in detail. I faced a wall in the woman’s mind, a wall that she did not know was there. “I just never learned,” I said finally. “I’ll show you how to milk,” she said, as though glad to be charitable enough to repair a nigger’s knowledge on that score. “It’s easy.”