Coping

When wright says that he had begun coping with the white world too late he means that he has lived in his own reality in which the races were equal because in a logical sense, to him they were. As he found out, however, he underestimated the malice that the white world would inflict upon him. He was tricked by the white society. He tried to play the game of life fairly and lost. Such an example can be found in one of the jobs that Wright occupies. While the owner is enthusiastic about hiring Wright, the two men that the owner hired to train Wright are not. Because they fear that Wright will do their jobs better than they can, instead of teaching Wright how to do the job, they think up false accusations like forgetting to address one of them as "Mr." Caught in a situation in which he cannot win, Wright is forced to leave the job he is in, and, fearing for his life, he does not tell the owner why he chose to resign. Unlike many other crises Wright faces, this one clearly illustrates that the concept of simply conforming to the white way of life, which he cannot grasp, cannot be ignored. He is mad at himself, but caught in a lose-lose situation, Wright cannot avoid this confrontation with reality any longer.