Subservience

In the time Richard was living in I do think subservience was a necessary part of living.  Richard had tried to get around it by not conforming to the whites orders or the orders of people within his family.  This proved to fail him miserably.  He found out soon that although it might be extremely hard for him to do he needed to obey the needs of the whites and treat them high than himself.  If he did not do this in life he wouldn't get anywhere, and could possibly end up dead.  Richard dealt with whether to subside to others or not his whole life, and I think he finally realized when he was in Memphis that there was no other way to live but to give in to this.  In todays world there is a certain limit to which we use subservience.  We are not required to use it to every person we see like Richard had to for every white person.  We are only required to use it in situations such as dealing with parents, teachers, bosses, or figures that are higher than us that maintain some sort of control over us.  Subservience will always be necessary in living in order to avoid major conflicts or hardships in your life, but I don't think that it is anywhere as necessary as it was during Richard's life.