In the very first scenes following Bigger\u2019s arrest, it is clear that his criminal trial is already politicized. Two of his first visitors are Jan, Mary\u2019s boyfriend who introduced Bigger to Communism in \u201cFear,\u201d and Max, another member of the Communist Party who wishes to represent Bigger as his defense attorney. While both Jan and Max hope to help Bigger seemingly out of empathy for his situation, they have political motivations as well. Max even tells the State\u2019s attorney Buckley, \u201cIf you had not dragged the name of the Communist Party into this murder, I\u2019d not be here,\u201d (292). Max wants the people of Chicago to realize that the Communist Party is not at fault for what Bigger did, but rather broken American systems are the enemy, which he believes Communism could fix. Max is defending not only Bigger but Max\u2019s political party too. Buckley, on the other hand, is resolved to convict both. When questioning Bigger and Jan, he repeatedly attempts to implicate Jan and the broader Communist Party in Mary\u2019s death. In doing so, he works to protect the racist, capitalist status quo, represented by the Daltons and him. While Mr. Dalton may think his charity work has absolved him of his racism, Max\u2019s cross examination of Mr. Dalton reveals the wealthy man\u2019s unwillingness to help Black communities on a more impactful level. Despite being aware of their destitute living conditions, he refuses to charge them less rent because that would be \u201cunderselling [his] competitors\u201d (328). Mr. Dalton\u2019s reasoning illustrates how capitalism enables, and is, in some cases, used to justify racism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the Communists, Jan and Max, show Bigger compassion. When Jan reaches out to Bigger despite what he did to Mary, \u201cfor the first time in [Bigger\u2019s] life, a white man became a human being to him\u201d (289). Through Jan and Max, Communism is associated with equality and humanity. During the immense pressure of his cross-examination, Jan sticks to his ideals when asked about Black people. Buckley incredulously asks, \u201cYou like <\/em>Negroes?\u201d as Jan says he \u201cmake[s] no distinctions,\u201d telling Buckley directly that Bigger \u201cis human\u201d (320-321). Max repeatedly objects to the relevance of Buckley\u2019s racist, political questions, but to no avail. The trial is not just between the government and Bigger, but between capitalism and Communism. By drawing such a distinction, Wright describes capitalism as an institution that allows racism to persist, while Communism is portrayed as an answer to modern civilization\u2019s deepest problems. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the very first scenes following Bigger\u2019s arrest, it is clear that his criminal trial is already politicized. Two of his first visitors are Jan, Mary\u2019s boyfriend who introduced Bigger to Communism in \u201cFear,\u201d and Max, another member of the Communist Party who wishes to represent Bigger as his defense attorney. While both Jan and … Continue reading Capitalism, Communism, and the Political Trial<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3914,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-native-son"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}