Themes and Corresponding Works
G. W. Goodrum, Jr.
In this paper, I will try to compare
and contrast two separate poems. The
comparison works will be that of “What it’s like to be a black girl” by
Patricia Smith and “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Morales. This paper will display race and ethnicity of
two contrasting authors
and how they view the world in which they live.
These poems are comparatively
described as significant works of art from two amazing yet distinct
writers. The relationships between the
two are encouraged and imagined by readers from all walks of life. Their writings are filled with symbolic
connotations and denotations from a period in their childhoods that reflect the
good or bad times in their lives. As a
product of the 50’s and 60’s America was personified for its diverse cultures
and its freedoms that many immigrants came seeking a new beginning. Realistically speaking, there were a lot of
major cities in the United States of America that thrived with riches beyond
measures, but there were also many regions plagued with racism and
discrimination. The above stated poems
are a mere reflection of the two unequal United States of America.
The creators of these two poems were
women, both born in the mid 1950s.
Patricia Smith was born in Chicago, Illinois and Aurora Morales was born
in Puerto Rico. Their experiences were
from the eyes of innocence. Both authors
began their works by describing somewhat contrasting childhood memories. Aurora speaks with pride in her voice
compared to Patricia’s description of negativity and inferiority.
Before the two writers were born,
Dr. Kenneth Clark a noted psychologist had tested sixteen children in South
Carolina ranging in ages between six and nine. Although the dolls used were
exactly the same, except for color, eleven of the children picked the brown
doll as looking "bad." Seven of the Black children said that the
white doll looked like them.
Dr. Clark concluded that these
children "are subjected to an obviously inferior status in the society in
which they live, have been definitely harmed in the development of their
'personalities'." The plaintiffs in the four cases comprising Brown v.
Board of Education had raised grievances about inferior school facilities but
the "Supreme Court apprised the plaintiffs that their children were
suffering from Negro inferiority.
What it’s like to be a black girl,
nine years of age? In a time when black
is defined as sad, depressing, disastrous, monstrous, sinful and devilish. The writer alludes to a stage in life where
puberty is imminent; and the young girl begins to discover herself in a
negative manner. Maybe she was teased by
classmates as being dark as night, or even an ugly duckling with big lips. Her thoughts may have been that she is not
finished or is incomplete. The writer
stated that, “The edges are wild”, may have been a representation of her hair
being too short and nappy. Her arms and
legs are too long for her torso. Her
views are simple like something, everything is wrong with her appearance. Compare this to the child of the Americas,
born light-skinned and of mixed descent.
Her parents made her aware of the plight of the Jewish people and their
heritage, and that gave her a different outlook on life, a Puerto Rican Jew.
Contrary to the Black culture, there
are internal and external biases that influence how Black children perceive
themselves and are viewed by others. Well over six decades after the original
Clarks' Doll Tests, societal changes and landmarks in education, children are
viewed as an objective lens through which we can view progress. Black children
have demonstrated a rejection of the mirrored images of themselves, in the form
of dolls and drawings. We must ask the question, has there been no real
progress in over six decades of perceived changes? This study was designed to
examine the racial preference of Black children between the ages of 3 to 6
years, and the attitudes and experiences of their parents or guardians.
Fifty-one African American or interracial (with one parent being African
American) children were administered a variant of the Clark Doll Test and a
modified version of the Preschool Racial Attitude Measure (PRAM II).
For each child participant, a parent
or guardian completed a rating scale survey and an open-ended questionnaire
pertaining to personal experiences, preferences, and attitudes related to
experiences as a Black person or interactions with Black professionals. Similar
to earlier studies, Black children indicated a preference for White dolls in
response to choice tasks involving the doll they liked the best and the one
that was a nice color. The majority of the children selected the Black doll as
the one that looked bad. The modified PRAM II was presented as a choice task
for the children to select a Black or White person, male or female, in response
to positive and negative characteristics and gender roles. For the purposes of
this study, the positive and negative characteristics on the PRAM were the
primary focus. On all requests related to positive characteristics, the
majority of the child participants selected the drawing of a White person. With
the exception of one negative characteristic, the majority of child
participants rated the Black people negatively. Parent surveys demonstrated
that Black parents and guardians whose responses appear to be bitter regarding
the occupation, political and the legal system as it pertains to Blacks, have
children who rated Blacks negatively and demonstrated a preference for White
dolls. Parent surveys reflect that the majority of Black adults do not
purposefully seek to support Black businesses or professionals. Overall, the
results of the Doll tests and modified PRAM demonstrate that Black children, do
not hold positive views of child and adult members of their own race.
Throughout many periods of American
history, children were being bused to school after the Supreme Court ruling of
Brown versus the Board of Education ruling against State sponsored segregation
in schools. Imagine what it was like to
be a black girl in a classroom filled with white girls? Whose eyes are blue, or green, or hazel or
even gray, staring at you like something is wrong with you? Consider the tone that Patricia uses in her
poem. It is one of negativity and
despair. The poem is filled with
collusions of suffering and poignant stereotypes of racism and discrimination. The figurative language indicated in this
poem is that the stares were enough to warrant dropping food coloring in your
eyes to make them blue. Contrary to the
tone in Aurora’s “Child of the
Americas”. She conveys a strong sense of
pride and knowledge of who she is and that she is not a product of the ghettos
of New York, which she has never known, but that she is the daughter and
granddaughter of immigrants. This young
lady takes pride in her heritage and her abilities to speak the English
language.
Both poems provide the readers with
an insight into the psychological awareness of two different young girls
growing up in two unequal Americas. The
black girl attempts were to redefine who she would like be compared to the
Latina who embraces who she is. Aurora’s
character describes herself as one who is not African, Taino ( a member of an
extinct Native Central American people who lived on the Caribbean islands of
the Greater Antilles, and the Bahamas), or European but one that understands
her beginning, her heritage and believes in her abilities to be an American. Unlike the black girl and who wants a
makeover. Just as the previous Dr. Clark
studies described, she does not look at herself or her surroundings in a
positive outlook.
As both young girls enter puberty,
the black girl notices the “space between her legs and the disturbances on her
chest”. As members of the opposite sex
began to notice the changes in her physical appearance she becomes
confused. What did the black girl do
that was wrong? She tried food coloring
in her eyes to make the blue. The
burning and the crying were kept in silence.
She even used a bleached white mop-head over her kinks to possibly
change her looks and peering into the mirrors that denied her imaginative
reflection. The makeover would have been
complete if she could only live outside of her reality. Unlike the Latino American who adores her
body, her tongue and her hips. Life is
good and filled with memories of the island, especially the smell of garlic and
mangoes, the singing of poetry and dancing with her hands.
The figurative language used by
Patricia Smith is a true representation of life as a young black girl growing
up in America wondering what it was like to be white. Compare that to the
metaphors that Aurora uses to indicate the love that she has from her familial
surroundings.
Cultural tenets common among Latino
subgroups, including religion, gender roles, and families have been linked with
sexual behaviors and are likely to be important in the development of
culturally effective interventions. For example, religiosity as conceptualized
by religious practice and belief, church attendance, and valuing religion has
been associated with less permissive attitudes about sex and limited sexual
experience. The main idea is the
importance of integrating cultural beliefs and values of Latino adolescents in
prevention efforts, the influence of family, gender-role expectations, and
religion on sexual attitudes, beliefs, and norms of young Latina
adolescents. The values of cultural
concepts have been characterized in Latino populations and provided evidence
about their direct or indirect influence on sexual attitudes and norms. This type of group setting, focus group
participants can fully describe complex experiences including beliefs, perceptions,
attitudes, and reasons for specific behaviors.
This cultural influence is amplified by Aurora when she states at the
end of her poem, “I am whole”.
In school we learned about the
Declaration of Independence. It states,
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”.
Patterns of inequality have long been at the heart of the sociological
enterprise. Central to this line of investigation has been the role of
ascription in shaping objective indicators of inequality such as income,
employment patterns, housing and health. A primary focus on objective
indicators of inequality, however, overlooks an important realm of human
experience - namely, how we feel about and appraise our experiences and our
position in the social world. Evidence suggests that objective indicators of
inequality do not fully capture or determine the subjective experience and
appraisal of a person's life (Veenhoven 2008).
In this article we extend and
elaborate an important thread of research on ascription and the quality of life
begun in the 1980s by Thomas and Hughes (1986), revisited again by Hughes and
Thomas (1998), but largely overlooked by other scholars. In those studies,
attention was focused on broad indicators of the quality of life - things like
happiness, health and perceptions of the trustworthiness of others we encounter
in social life - and how they were related to race, class and time. Their
research suggested a substantial disadvantage for blacks across a diverse set
of quality-of-life measures.
In conclusion, I have attempted to
compare and contrast two poems by different authors on race and ethnicity. The poem by Patricia Smith, “What it’s like
to be a black girl” has been somewhat compared and contrasted to the work of
Aurora Morales, “Child of the Americas.
The elements of figurative language, metaphors and imagination have been
discussed in attempting to showcase the racial divide and ethnicity of two
young girls growing up in two different versions of America.
References
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P., & Paulsen, K. (1981). Methodology for the Study of the Development of
Racism.
Clugston,
R. W. (2010). Journey into literature.
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