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  • I, Too by Langston Hughes

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    I, Too by Langston Hughes is a poem of protest against American racism. It argues that black people have made important contributions to American culture and society through their labor and traditions, though these contributions have been intentionally ignored by white people through practices like segregation. The speaker insists that as black culture continues to develop and strengthen independently, white society will no longer be able to deny or exclude black people and will have to recognize their role in America's history and identity.

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    I, Too

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    I, Too by Langston Hughes is a poem of protest against American racism. It argues that black people have made important contributions to American culture and society through their labor and traditions, though these contributions have been intentionally ignored by white people through practices like segregation. The speaker insists that as black culture continues to develop and strengthen independently, white society will no longer be able to deny or exclude black people and will have to recognize their role in America's history and identity.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    357 views2 pages

    I, Too by Langston Hughes

    Uploaded by

    honey jean gomez
    I, Too by Langston Hughes is a poem of protest against American racism. It argues that black people have made important contributions to American culture and society through their labor and traditions, though these contributions have been intentionally ignored by white people through practices like segregation. The speaker insists that as black culture continues to develop and strengthen independently, white society will no longer be able to deny or exclude black people and will have to recognize their role in America's history and identity.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    I, Too by Langston Hughes

    Analysis

    I, Too” is a cry of protest against American racism. Its speaker, a black man, laments the way
    that he is excluded from American society—even though he is a key part of it. But, the speaker
    argues, black people have persevered—and will persevere—through the injustices of racism
    and segregation by developing a vibrant, beautiful, and independent cultural tradition, a cultural
    tradition so powerful that it will eventually compel white society to recognize black contributions
    to American life and history.
    Throughout the poem, the speaker insists that he is authentically American and that his
    community has made important contributions to American life. The speaker begins by
    announcing, “I, too, sing America.” This is an allusion to a poem by Walt Whitman, “I Hear
    America Singing.” In that poem, Whitman describes America as a song, which emerges from a
    diverse chorus of workers, farmers and industrial labors, women and men.
    However, Whitman notably does not include black people in his vision of American life. Even
    though the poem was written in 1855, just five years before the Civil War started, he doesn’t
    mention slavery at all. The speaker objects to Whitman’s poem, insisting that black people
    contribute to the American “song”: in other words, that black culture and black labor have been
    key to creating America.
    The poem argues that these contributions have been consciously erased by white people. In the
    poem’s second stanza, the speaker notes that he is forced to “eat in the kitchen / when company
    comes.” This is an extended metaphor for segregation. It describes the way that white people
    treat black people and black contributions to American culture.
    The speaker also suggests that white and black communities are quite intimate with each other.
    The speaker is “the darker brother”—in other words, he’s part of the same family as the less
    dark people who force him to eat in the kitchen. Despite this intimacy, however, the white
    members of the family force him out of view when other people are around, when they have
    “company.” In other words, the extended metaphor highlights the hypocrisy of white
    communities: even though white and black people are part of the same American family, white
    people exclude, neglect, and ignore black contributions to American history and culture.
    Despite being treated like a second-class citizen, the speaker responds to injustice by declaring
    that he will “laugh,” “eat well,” and “grow strong.” In other words, black people respond to racism
    and segregation by developing vibrant and independent cultural traditions. These traditions give
    them strength so that, in the future, white people will no longer be able to ignore their
    contributions to American culture “they’ll see how beautiful I am,” the speaker announces in line
    16. Further, as a result of this strength and beauty, white people will no longer be able to
    exclude the “darker brother” from the table. Segregation itself will break down.
    The poem thus argues that racism involves a willful refusal to acknowledge that black people as
    just as American as anyone else. And it argues that this refusal will eventually cause the
    collapse of racism. The poem encourages black people to persevere, to deepen and extend
    their contributions to American life and culture until those contributions are impossible to ignore.

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