A Noah’s Ark poem by the great Syrian poet Adonis can be applied to the Puerto Rico rescue effort, especially as certain people on the right attempt to inject race into the affair.
Tag Archives: racism
May We Sail without Giving into Our Fears
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "New Noah", Adonis, analysis, Donald Trump, evangelicals, flooding, Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico Comments closed
Do You Believe in the Great White Race?
There’s a marked contrast between the nobility people claim for the Confederate statues and the young men swarming around them. Langston Hughes understood the contrast in his darkly humorous “Ku Klux.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Ku Klux", Confederate statues, Donald Trump, KKK, Langston Hughes, which supremacy Comments closed
Poetry Helped Feed Robert E. Lee Myth
Herman Melville and Julie Ward Howe, although anti-slavery, unfortunately wrote poems which helped mythologize Robert E. Lee, whose statues have become symbols of white supremacy. And indeed, Lee was a white supremacist.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Lee in the Capitol", "Robert E. Lee", Civil War, Herman Melville, Julie Ward Howe, white supremacism Comments closed
Mosley & Du Bois: Art as Propaganda
In a visit to our college, novelist Walter Mosley was asked to respond to a W. E. B. Du Bois passage about art as propaganda. Mosley said that, if his art is true, it will indeed function as propaganda in that it will overturn racial stereotypes.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Criteria of Nego Art, Devil in a Blue Dress, racial stereotypes, W. E. B. Dubois, Walter Mosley Comments closed
Trust in God, Argue For Justice
This Raymond Foss Purim poem reminds us that Queen Esther can be seen as standing up for oppressed people everywhere. The poem is particularly relevant in these dark times.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Standing Up Like Esther", discrimination, Esther, Raymond Foss, white nationalism Comments closed
Hughes Dreams the Real American Dream
Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again” is a powerful riposte to President Steven Bannon and Co.’s “Make America Great Again.” Poems like this one can play an important role in resistance against the Trump administration.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Let America Be America Again", Donald Trump, Langston Hughes, Make America Great Again, Michael Anton, Steve Bannon, Trumpist, white nationalism Comments closed
Read Poetry To Keep Hope Alive
Literature that just shows us the grim truth of reality without the possibility of hope calls into question the whole enterprise. Much great literature frames reality in such a way that we can see new possibilities for ourselves.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church", "Speech to the Young", Audre Lorde, Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes Comments closed
We Benefit When We Check Our Privilege
Do be blind to one’s privileges is to live in a world of shadows and phantoms, as Ralph Ellison and Lucille Clifton both make clear. Life if much richer if we identify our blindnesses and engage with people as three-dimensional beings.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "wishes for sons", Invisible Man, Lucille Clifton, Ralph Ellison, white privilege Comments closed
