Over 200 years, America has lived. 200 years, and not everybody has learned how to overcome prejudice and hatred. Like the years preceding, the 20’s supported these practices. Many encouraged racism. Cullen contested the idea. The voice of his poetry transcends the plague of racism. It’s a plague that manifests itself even in our country today.
When someone mentions the terms, Ferguson and Baltimore, does that sound familiar? It should. Both cities were the settings of riots resulting from someone’s death. Some blamed the police. Some blamed the criminals. Whatever the opinion, it’s impossible to deny the existence of racism.
When we listen to Cullen’s Tableau, we can learn from “the black boy and the white” who are “locked arm in arm”. They prove that racism is learned, not innate. Race only becomes an issue if we make it that way. The most important issue is, “How can we improve?”
Woot
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