Race and Equality

After reading today's selected poems and essay, the authors' feeling of pride really stuck out to me.  All four authors display strong feelings of pride throughout their pieces, especially McKay: "If we must die, O let us nobly die" (If We Must Die 5).  McKay wrote this poem during a time in which many riots against African Americans took place.  He believes that if African Americans must die, they deserve to die in a just manner.  In addition to McKay, Hurston's essay displays how proud she is to be an African American: "BUT I AM NOT tragically colored.  There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes.  I do not mind at all"(paragraph 6).  Hurston's use of diction in the previous quote shows how she does not pity herself for being black; she is proud of it.  Furthermore, Hughes shows her determination in life through her poem "Mother to Son."  In this poem Huges shows a mother who is advising her son to push through the struggles he may face in life, and if he turns back, his journey will be even harder: "Don't you set down on the steps/ 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard./ Don't you fall now-/ For I'se still goin', honey,/ I'se still climbin' (15-19).  She shows her son how she is still fighting for equality, despite how hard her journey has been.  Moreover, Cullen demonstrates a feeling of pride in his poem "Yet Do I Marvel" when he is awed by the fact that God would give him the gift of poetry: "To make a poet black, and bid him to sing!"  Cullen is surprised that God would give an African American the ability to write poetry, despite the fact that the man holding the pen is black. 

I feel that McKay is the more passionate and angry of the four writers.  His poems reflect a sense of turbulence, unlike the others: "If we must die, let it not be like hogs/ Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,/While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,/ Making their mock at our accursed lot" (If We Must Die 1-4).  McKay states that African Americans deserve to die in a civil manner, not like an animal being tormented and slaughtered. 

I believe that McKay's poems are more in line with the ideas of the authors from yesterday's reading, especially Thomas Paine. The inequality existing in America creates a fiery feeling inside McKay, which makes him want to rebel: "Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,/Giving me strength erect against her hate"(America 5-6).  As well as McKay, Paine instills a passionate feeling within the colonists to encourage them to rebel against the British.