Sunday, September 16, 2007
Claude McKay
I really enjoyed these poems. McKay managed to relay his thoughts and feelings of being a black man in America while making it sound good at the same time. I am really impressed with the poetry. The poem I enjoyed the most was "The Dominant White". McKay eloquently tells the reader that the whites had such opportunity to help the blacks. They had the power and ability to help, they had laws to protect and yet they didn't help the blacks and they didn't protect the blacks. They took the tools they had to help and used them to hurt the minority races. My favorite line in the poem is "you've proved unworthy of your trust". I think it is a perfect way to describe the treatment of the blacks. We could have helped them, we could have put an end to unjust and unfair treatment but we didn't. We were trusted with helping them overcome the obstacles they faced as a minority race and instead we helped betray them. This poem is an amazing summary of the treatment of blacks in the US.
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I enjoyed the poem, The Dominant White as well. This poem was very representative of McKay’s thoughts and feelings toward the white man in the United States during this time. This poem discusses the ways in which the white man has tried to bring down the black man instead of using his power to help and uplift him. I also agree that the line, “Because you’ve proved unworthy of your trust” is a great line in this poem. Whites had the power to help African Americans and they let them down. Therefore, white people destroyed any trust that African Americans had in them. This is a very powerful poem.
In The Dominant White,I was surprised with how McKay can get numerous points across within only a few short lines of poetry. For example he states “And [whites] made the black ashamed to see his face. You ruined him, put doubt into his heart, you set a sword between him and his kin.” These three lines sum up how slavery impacted African Americans’ lives. I think it stands for the blacks who felt that their race and ethnicity was a burden on them, affecting their social status, opportunities, and family life. McKay writes that racism forced blacks to look at themselves and their existence in negative ways. “Put[ting] doubt into his heart” hit me hard because no person should be made to feel ashamed about who they are and where they come from. This idea connects to The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man because these feelings are the reason to why the narrator decided to “pass” for white.
The Dominant White was a great poem. I also felt as though McKay was putting the black race down. in the line "you proved unworthy of your trust" I think put down the race. It's like the only people that the minorities have to look to is the white race. He's kinda saying they are below the white race and without them they would be nothing.
I agree with what you said it's really impressive how eliquently McKay was able to articulate what the race relations in the US were. It is also impressive that he did so tactfully enough so not to completely alienate a white audience.
Mckay refers to god in this poem and says how god gave the white race a power that no other race has. It is upseting to me that the people of the black community feel that they, themselves, are lesser than the whites and that the white people should have used this gift to help them. This mindset is after decades of the white race treating the black community as if they were animals. Its horrible to even think about it.
I agree with you and to some extent I'm sad to say it still applies to race relations in the US today. Are we really helping as much as we can? Or do we just expect them to pick themselves back up after we made sure they were down for so long.
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