Camp-town ladies sing this song...

When Richard says that he has “begun coping with the white world to late,” it means that he was past the age where it was easy to impress upon him how to act around white people, and therefore the process of conforming to integrated society was much harder upon him. Had he begun earlier in assimilating with the white world, it would have been a quicker transition. For example, when he went out or groceries, he learned early in his life to fight back. Had he the next day been beaten up by white boys and fought back, it is likely that he would have learned a subsequent lesson about not acting up against white people. However, this did not happen. This is evident in many of the jobs Wright has, for example while he was working in the movie theatre, he was not accustomed to seeing a black girl having her rear end squeezed unwillingly by a white officer. Another example was when he was looking at the white prostitute in the presence of one of her ‘customers.’ He had become accustomed to looking at her every now and then, but in the presence of white men, he could not hold this urge completely.