Coping With the White World

By saying that he had begun "coping with the white world too late, " RIchard meant that he had not been accustomed to being subservient to white people at an early enough age. When he was young, his mother never discussed race with him, and he rarely had encounters with whites. The idea o being a second-class citizen is something that has to either be born or broken into a person; he can't simply change his habits after he's become a young adult.

This is shown when he is walking out of the hotel with a black, female, coworker. The white security guard touches her inappropriately, but the woman makes no move to stop or reprimand him. Richard is aghast by this, but she replies by saying that it's just the way it is. She is not nearly as offended as Richard because she has grown up in the face of white prejudice.

Again this is shown while Richard watches his peers steel from white people. They steel partially because they need the resources, but also because it's their way of hurting the whites. Richard abstains from this practice not because he's morally against thievery, but because he can look at the behavior from a distance and understand that it doesn't matter. It plays into the system more to resort to petty theft because it means that they are not thinking on a higher level. He has not been conditioned to see little victories against white people as the only way to get something from them. He wants more; he wants to be able to honestly stand up for what's right, which strongly contrasts with what his complacent peers believe.