Poems About Racism
This past Tuesday when Barack Obama stepped out of the political morass and wiped the mud from his suit, when every one of the chattering news networks quieted down to watch him speak, I cringed, convinced the gifted orator couldn't be that gifted. He was doing himself in. Yet there he was addressing racism, of all things, with wisdom and grace and care and forgiveness. Accepting that it was, in part, a calculated move by a campaign, and no matter its effect (or lack thereof) on the election, it was the most remarkable speech I've witnessed in my lifetime.
There were the pundits unsure how to handle what so clearly had transcended politics. There was CNN, plucking the most inflammatory line in the speech: Obama: "Racism is a Stain on the Constitution" for their headline--then realizing they were an embarrassing demonstration of Obama's criticism of the press, pulling it. It was a surreal and, in some ways, joyous moment.
Of course, as soon as Obama began walking off the stage, the smear engines of the right wing and the Clinton campaign were warming up again. Their agents were looking for attacks (how dare he insult his grandmother like that!). This is politics after all. But before we lose ourselves in that world again, I want to offer some of what poetry has added to the conversation on race. And I encourage you to add poems to my list.
Like Obama, Langston Hughes was raised by his mother and his grandmother--his father having abandoned them. He became one of the great American poets. His influences--including Carl Sandburg and Paul Laurence Dunbar--were both black and white. His bold and ambitious poem about the African American experience I, Too, Sing America, echoes Walt Whitman more than anyone else.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
It stuns me to think that this was written--that Hughes faced these issues--just over fifty years ago. Michael S. Harper, currently a professor at Brown university, reminds us in his poem American History how bad it was at the nation's birth and how bad it still can be.
Those four black girls blown up
in that Alabama church
remind me of five hundred
middle passage blacks,
in a net, under water
in Charleston harbor
so redcoats wouldn't find them.
Can't find what you can't see
can you?
Harlem Renaissance poet Claude MckKay's The White House lays out more of the difficulties faced by African-Americans and speaks to the resentment that might build in a community. There is dignity and power in the poem's rigid form.
Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.
In his great poem For the Union Dead, Robert Lowell ruminates on Boston's monument to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (who was white) and his 54th Massachusetts Regiment of African American soldiers (you might know them as the subject of the movie Glory).
Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead...
The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year--
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns . . .
Shaw's father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son's body was thrown
and lost with his "niggers."
Lowell wrote that the monument "sticks like a fishbone in the city's throat." It was a wonder to hear that throat cleared on Tuesday.
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2 + 2 still equals 4.
It amazes me that there are people who would deny the equation if it was spoken by someone who is not of their skin color and/or religion.
BEAUTIFUL, JOHN.... VERY WELL DONE.. AND NEEDED.....
Sen. Obama's speech will do little to change the discourse on race. Moreover, it will do little to sway voters his way. The folks that did not want to vote for a black person will feel justified for casting their vote for McCain or Clinton.
So if they don't vote for Senator Obama it must be because he's black? What about black people who want to vote for them? Guilt does not justify a vote.
That's speech was powerful and had an effect on them, otherwise they would have ignored it instead of spewing racist or stubbornly stupid comments.
Boo hoo.
"Level playing field"? Where in this world is there a level playing field for anything? Yo want a handout, that's what you want.
Obama is a politician just like any other politician telling people what he thinks they want to hear just so he can get their vote.
People that try to make him out to be anything more than that are nothing but a bunch of suckers.
Here is another poem - Merry-Go-Round - by Langston Hughes. Hopefully you'll have a few moments of patience to read it through.
COLORED CHILD AT CARNIVAL
Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back--
But there ain't no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?
Awesome.
LANGSTON HUGHES WAS A GENIUS
People like you moesart should shut their television off for a good year and just read poetry. You represent the part of America that is a total embarrassment.
Lundberg kissing up to obama just like so many media and blogger whores---expecting to gain interviews and special seats on the plane--pathetic creatures!!! making excuses for hate America wright and obama's wife--tell your poems to them,they need it!!!
What are You doing reading Poetry; You belong in a Cave or some Circus cage.
Another one against democracy. Why don't you move to North Korea for a change? You'll love it, they share your opinion.
Stop for a second and try to understand someone else's point-of-view. Senator Obama mentioned both sides, white and black, and the frustrations that each encounter. There's much more to be talked about and Obama can't do it all nor that every facet of racism and class in this country be addressed in one speech. It would be waaayyyyy too long.
Just for a change of pace, try reading about the experiences of people very different from yourself. I intend to.
Great information, well done.Thank you for taking the time to think about and write your article
It stuns me to see so few comments on THIS post. Perhaps Huffpo readers are a microcosm of the population in the United States. If it doesnt have a controversial spin on it, something to start a vitriolic discourse and divide us over, then its not worth starting a dialogue.
The fact is, these poems speak volumes of truth because of the authors' experiences. I suppose no one wants to argue about an experience they never had.
Well, thank you John for your post. It is awesome, in MY opinion.
FYI, there's only one argumentative post on this thread and it's yours. Bless you anyway.
WHAT?!?!?
Nice try, dude.
It wasn't argumentative. I agree. To be talking about poetry on an online news site, amazing.
Yes!
John.......tne fact that you said:
"It stuns me to think that this was written--that Hughes faced these issues--just over fifty years ago."
is interesting and very telling. I learned these poems in English class at my semi-segregated, public high school in the South. I am 52. White-flight from Blacks who were "moving on up" into their neighborhoods pretty much cleared the school of white kids.
Since you mentioned Paul Laurence Dunbar and we're all sharing favorites, I'd like to share one of mine published in 1896:
We Wear the Mask
WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Seems the more things change, the more they saty the same.
Thank you for posting "We Wear the Mask" . It is my favorite also. For me, it says it all. Wearing the mask is very, very hard. It doesn't mean you don't love--it just means you know the love won't be returned. It's very hard.
Awesome article. I'm glad folks haven't come in here throwing needless attacks around.
Thanks oliviasmommi. That was so appropriate for the current debate about Obama's candidacy. Some are calling him, his wife and his Pastor racist for having the audacity to address the unlevel playing field that still exists in America. Many of those proudly wear the "false patriotic wreath" and the false religious wreath claiming that their own pastor never preaches hate, ignoring his comments about how those with the wrong sexual orientation should be treated.
We need a leader who can bring us together, not another one who tears us apart.
Great post. It illustrates what happens when such an integral part of Amercana is ignored in our educational system. You get what we have a dumb, intolerant, insensitive, uninformed America - Black and white. Black history is World History.
hmmm...I just posted a comment, and it said it was pending, but then I come back and check and it says there are no comments pending...I will repost, but I apologize in advance if it ends up being double posted!
One of my favorite poems is Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
One of my favorites is "Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes:
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
Beautiful! This should be posted on the Fox discussion boards.
For those of us who worked & prayed for Civil Rights in the 60's, these days are a long time coming.
We've had to accept the little bits of progress that our pain bought.
Now, finally, here comes this man, Senator Barack Obama, & we all gather together again..... this time usning that new fangled computer/internet thing.
We are the same people; we are 60ish now & we stand with our children as our parents stood with us. We contribute what we can financially & we organize & show up & knock on doors.....those old skills still in place.
Senator Obama has made it possible for us to hope that maybe in our lifetime the American dialogue on race will rise above the chaos of hatred.
If this man can withstand this ugly political climate & keep speaking common sense & goodness - then we have a chance.
Senator Obama challenges every American to examine their deepest & true feelings about race. That examination forces conversation & clean conversation forces understanding. We are only as sick as our secrets.
Thanks to all who posted Langston Hughes. I've been reading his work again & also, August Wilson & for some reason, these days, I've been humming an old tune, the lyrics start: 'We shall overcome....
I was at an affair on the Saturday before Obama's speech and a 7th grade student recited this poem. I kept thinking the entire time how appropriate this was for the climate of today. Thanks for posting this for all to see.
This is wonderful; it is things such as this that could unite us as a society.
Cynics, angry people, bitter and shallow people are the least contributors to a succesfull society.
It is wise to maintain a certain level of hope and idealism in order to live a peacefull and balanced life.
Culture and self- improvement plays an important part in human development.
This Blog is very appropiate for an Easter Sunday.
Thank you asere for your comment. You are so right.
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