李察一直是叛逆的，从他很小的时候到青年期。例如，当李察的校长要求他给白人和黑人听众演讲时，李察拒绝读校长的书面讲话。只要读校长的演讲，他就感到如释重负。他有其他黑人所缺乏的意志和勇气来开始自己的演讲。李察因为这种不公正的行为而愿意离开学校，因为白人知道李察是与众不同的，他们知道他挑战了“体制”，他不像其他黑人那样害怕。读者可以感觉到来自白人的恐惧，因为李察对白人的态度和他周围的边界。白色的试图掩盖他们的恐惧和被残酷和贬低对整个黑人种族主义推。我们可以看到在李察得到一份新工作在光的地方现场，和他的同事虐待他只是因为老板对李察。后来李察离开工作，知道他的同事会'杀'他告诉老板他发生了什么事。同事们的敌意太大了，李察再也无法应付了，被迫辞职。
Richard was always rebellious, from when he was really young to young adulthood. For example, when the principal at Richard’s school had asked him to give a speech to the audience of whites and blacks, Richard refused to read the principal’s pre-written speech. Just by reading the principal’s speech he was relieved at the same overly stressed out. He had the will and courage that other black individuals lacked to commence forth with this own speech. Richard was willing to leave school without a diploma just because of this unjust action.The whites knew that Richard was different; they knew that he challenged the “system” and he wasn’t afraid like the rest of the black people. The readers can sense fear coming from the whites, due to Richard’s attitude towards the whites and the boundaries that surround him. The white’s try to cover up their fear and pushing racism by being cruel and demeaning towards the entire black population. We can see in the scene where Richard gets a new job at the optical place, and his co-workers mistreat him just because the boss is kind to Richard. Later Richard leaves the job knowing that his co-workers would ‘kill’ him if told the boss what happed to him. The hostility portrayed by his co-workers was so great that Richard couldn’t handle it anymore, and was forced to leave his job.
