Tuesday May 24th:

“If We Must Die” tells the story that through hardships death will approach. If death seems to be overwhelming and consume your body then you need to die fight for what you believe in and make sure that you lived your life virtuously so that you will always be remember by your enemies. McKay makes certain that we all grasp that point of view because when he ended the poem he said “Like men we’ll face the murderous. Cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back. I think that McKay was struggling with his peers because he was a noble man when he came to America but I gather in a sense that he was consider a “nobody” once he arrived. This could have had something to do with him being colored and also have intelligence and he was looked down upon due to those reasons. McKay uses firm punctuation to prove the impart parts in his poem; he makes sure that he punctuates the fact that we should die fight back because he ends with a firm punctuation.

The second poem that I read was also by McKay. “America” starts off and it is like McKay is comparing America to mother qualities because he says “she feeds me bread of bitterness” a mother feeds a child and in a sense America feeds the world. As the poem ends McKay states “Darkly I gaze into the days ahead. Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand”. To me this means no matter what excitement comes your way, your daily task and life will sometimes come at you as a struggle.  I think that McKays complicated relationship with America is that due to the current time setting things are quite a struggle for people in America though they may be face with new and exciting things they still have to remember at the end of the day what’s really going on.

Hurston’s “ How it feels to be colored me” is a short story that explains the life of Zora. Zora was a young girl that grew up in a all black community and didn’t really see the different in blacks or whites until the age of thirteen. She was sent to school in Jacksonville and everything started to change. Zora then started to notice and feel what it really was to be black because before then she was never judge by the white people that passed through her town. Zora says that “ I feel the most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background”. This indicates that she feels equally the same as long as she doesn’t have a white person condemning her of the slavery that was once knew by her family. I think that from this the biggest thing that Zora was to achieve is to be treated equally no matter where she is. Zora last statement “Perhaps that is how the Great Suffer of Bags filled them in the first place” means that we are all created the same by the same person being God and he doesn’t look down upon us due to our color or belief. I think the moral of this story is that no matter our race, belief, appearance we should all still have the same love for each other that God has for us.

“Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes is quite the poem. Hughes demonstrates in her poem that she has been faced with many defeating things and hardships but she has thrived on and still accomplished things. Hughes wrote this to pass on or show people that no matter what comes your way you can continue to push on and survive. I think that this is a major downfall for people today because they let one thing discourage them and that’s it they simply give up. The last line of her poem states that “ And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” which means that her life hasn’t been an easy street for her but she put all other things aside, did what she had to and came out on top!

Hughes poem “Theme for English B” relates back to what we have read today and yesterday. Today’s focus is basically the same as yesterday but we are dealing with race and equality at the same time. Hughes was a color lady and she is simply describing that though she is colored she still has values of equality and simply likes to do the same things as any ordinary person. Hughes says “I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races”. This is an amazing line that I should relate to daily because sometimes I find myself questioning others actions just not because of their race but just because they aren’t me.

Cullen’s poem “Yet Do I Marvel” allows the reader to see what it’s like in someone else’s shoes. Cullen makes the poem seem real to person so that they can understand where he is coming from. The problem that Cullen faces in this poem is trying to understand Gods reason for the cruelty that is placed upon African Americans and the racism that is seen during this time. This poem seems real to me because I’m sure we all haven’t been faced with discrimination but I’m sure we all have felt tired or exhausted after climbing stairs. I think that Cullen did a really good job at making this poem seem real to everyone just not to one culture because he was formal with stating relevant facts and things that we are all familiar with.

Cullen’s other poem “ Incident” simple states that no matter all the good things that happen once something bad occurs you simply remove everything and continue to remember the bad- “ of all the thing that happened there that’s all that I remember”. The rhyme scheme that is in the poem gives it a since of ownership. It lets you hit right on the important words in the poem and it kind of is like the theme of the poem. I say this because as I come to words I easily remember the ones that rhyme together and erase the other words that I read through.

The similarities that I sense among these four writers is that they are all looking for that since of relief as being a  colored person during this time. Each poem or story relates to how they have had troublesome experiences with being colored. McKay states this in “If we Must die” because during that time many African Americans were killed because of their race, Hughes says this in “Mother to Son” because she is letting the people know that just because her life hasn’t been pleasant like some she is still going to live it to the fullest and not let anyone drag her down. I think that one why these poems differ is that they all use different things in their life or different ways of getting the same message across. Cullen talks about a trip to Baltimore and from that he was discriminated upon and that’s what he takes with him, Hurston explains that she though of herself as being equal until she is surround by white people who look down upon her. I think that overall no matter the way of explaining the issue they all believed in having a life that was equal with others through beliefs, race and color!

Connection: After reading these poems and short story I keep thinking back to “Finding Nemo” It may sound dumb but Nemo was discriminated upon due to his deformed fin, Nemo faced many mean fish because of this and even his dad babied him. It took Nemo going off to find himself and actually prove people wrong that just because of one minor thing didn’t mean that he was any different than them and he still enjoyed the things that they do.

Questions:

Have we all had the experience of being discriminated upon due to our race?

What would things be like if race and equality were still as big of an issue like they once were?