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.
Tag Archives: racism
Hughes Dreams the Real American Dream
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
Morrison: Where America Went Wrong
Toni Morrison’s 2008 novel “A Mercy” seems to start with a promising vision of America before everything goes wrong. It’s as though she starts with the optimism of the Obama years and then predicts the Trump backlash.
All Must Love the Human Form
In “The Divine Image,” Blake gives us a poem for our time, a call to pray for mercy, pity, peace, and love and to recognize the human form in diversity. In “The Human Abstract” he adds that prayer is not enough. It must be accompanied by human justice.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Divine Image", "Human Abstract", Abortion, analysis, Christian Right, classism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, politics, Steve Bannon, William Blake Comments closed
How Trump’s White Appeal Degrades
In his novel “Snow,” Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk captures what it is like for Turks to see themselves through the eyes of Germans. In Trump’s election, my students of color saw themselves through the eyes of white America and didn’t like what they saw.
Toni Morrison: White Panic Led to Trump
As Toni Morrison sees it, William Faulkner’s observations about white panic go a long way toward explaining Trump’s victory.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged 2016 presidential election, Absolom Absolom, Donald Trump, Go Tell a Watchman, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Toni Morrison, white privilege, William Faulkner Comments closed
