Diversity: Race

Graduation

This excerpt from “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, written by Maya Angelou, gave me some interesting new insights on how life would have been while separate was equal. Being so close to graduation it definitely applies to me. Even though in the book she is talking about her 8^th grade graduation, I still would have reacted the same to the speakers that she did if something with the same type of insults.

Angelou writes, “The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren’t even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises.” (pg. 616) Even though the speaker was trying to tell them that they could become like this “idol”, they also did the opposite. Those who are not athletic or not male have no chance to become what they viewed should be their example. It was interesting to me when she talked about how she responded to the quote, “to be or not to be”. She stated that they just told her that she COULDN’T be, so she doesn’t even have that choice.

Two different songs were sung at the graduation. Because of this separate anthem for the country America, I thought about “I, too, am America” from the Langston Hughes poems on page 594.  Are they acknowledged as Americans if they are to sing a different anthem for their country?

Selected Poems

“I, too, am America” is only one of the many poems selected to highlight Langston Hughes’ poems. It really is my favorite as well. I like how he describes the day when he will gain his rights as a citizen. He talks about how nobody will tell him to eat, breath, or basically do anything somewhere else, and that they will be ashamed because they once did. This poem is also quoted in “The Great Debaters”. I believe that people really did quote him to keep each other strong. His works must have influenced many.

The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi

I am having a hard time responding to this article by William Bradford and I’m not sure why. I guess it could be because it really is a “shocking story”. This is the first time that I learned about the things that people got away with in those days just because they did it to a black man, especially murder. Its crazy to think that there were no penalties for things that were done in that time of our history.

Our discussions in class about the incident in “The Great Debaters” where a scholarly and very wise black man is still trumped by scraggly, farmer, white men made me think about this a lot. They could have killed him and his whole family right there and gotten away with it. I think the father knew that. That would be so stressful to know that at anytime somebody has the right to kill you.

Of course in this story, Emmett Till did make a choice to go and get himself into trouble. I’m not sure that he understood, at the time, that he really could be killed for doing what he did to that girl. I wonder if he ever fully thought about that.