McKay Poems

After reading the poems by McKay, there were two that stood out. In class we discussed the violence that African Americans went through and the torture they faces on an everyday basis. In the poems, "The Dominant White" and "The White House" you get a sense of the impact whites had on African Americans.

In the first paragraph of "The Dominant White", it describes how God gave whites the power and strength to help and lift, but instead abused their gifts and made African Americans bleed and hurt. In the second paragraph, he describes with detail the toture that whites put African Americans through. The description of the paragraph is similar in the Autobiography by Johnson when the narrator is describing the lynching. WIth the descriptions of these brutal attacks, you can see the impact it has left on so many African Americans. How could someone ever forget or forgive whites for what they have done? In the third paragraph he says,"Bequeathed to it a bastard heritage And made the black ashamed to see his face." What an awful feeling that African Americans have to face during this time. The term bastard heritage is a powerful way to describe whites. The last thing McKay says in every paragraph is, "You've proven unworthy of your trust, God-He shall humble you down to the dust." I think this sums up the feelings of African Americans. They were given a job by God when put on this earth, and for not doing that, God is going to punish them as much as they have punished African Americans. I think although African Ameicans may have felt hopeless at times, they kept God by their side to guide them, which is how they overcame this traumatic time in history.

I like the poem "The White House" because you get the sense of hatred that African Americans have developed towards whites. He says, "But I possess the courage and the grace To bear my anger proudly and unbent." I compared this poem with "The Dominant White" because in "The Dominant White", we get a sense of how brutal the whites were towards the African Americans and how cruel they were. In this poem, we see that even though whites are cruel and unworthy, African Americans will hold their heads up and fight this battle until it ends. They will not let white hatred posion them. I think this shows the strength that African Americans had and the courage they had to find within themselves to fight for their lives and for their race.