Hughes/Shocking Story

Hughes

            First off, I like this section because I decided that I like poetry, the kind that rhymes, and I like that his poetry really makes a statement. The first poem, Dinner Guest: Me, is a good one because obviously he knows that whites are racist so he pretty much throws it in their face in this poem and he basks in it. It’s quite humorous actually. And I like the part when he says, “Solutions to the problem, of course, wait.” (pg. 593) because it’s the typical belief that if a black person is involved they aren’t treated the same. The biggest connection I can make is in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when they always say that they are going to go to jail because they are black or “he” is for sure going because he is black. I like the poem Harlem because it’s more toned down and nice to think about. Obviously it has some deeper meaning behind it besides a dream that you dream at night while you are asleep but how I read it made it nice to keep it simple like that and really wonder where deferred dreams go. I love Cross because in history the issue of half black and white kids has been a real problem and he brings that out when he says, “I wonder where I’m gonna die, being neither white nor black?” (pg. 594) I, Too is a good poem as well because he’s really challenging Americans and saying don’t treat me different, I’m an American too. The Ghandhi poem was alright.

Shocking Story

            The general point made by William Bradford Huie in his work The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi is that man has a long history of inhumanity towards one another. More specifically, Huie suggests that racial issues have proven the most brutal examples in inhumanity. He writes, “…racial conflict had produced some of the most horrible examples of brutality.” (pg. 602) In this passage the Huie is saying exactly what I already said. In conclusion, it is Huie’s belief that this is one of the many examples of brutality displayed through racism and more broadly, humanity.

            In my view, Huie is right because what the ADULT men did was horrific. For example, I was trying to think of worse things that happened in history between the blacks and the whites but I couldn’t think of anything because this was a child, they shot him in the head, and then they tied the fan to him with barbed wire, around his neck. When they threw him in the water I can only imagine what that did to his neck. Maybe is severed his head! Although Huie might object that this wasn’t the worst act of them all, I maintain that I agree with him because it was a display of a large overreaction. Therefore, I conclude that the case of Emmett Till is in fact a great example in the ways of brutality between humans.