"Nigger" Carl Sandburg

I guess one of the most difficult thing to do is wonder how you fit into a larger society to only realize that your group of people has always had a negative stigma stamped on their backs. As a child this was a difficult concept for me to address because I loved everyone, and I thought everyone loved me. When I was old enough my parents began having little side-bars with me to explain that the world was not the way I saw it. "Don't speak this way Tisha, they will insult you. Don't where your hair that way, you will not get the job. Don't say things like blacks are oppressed people are tired of hearing it." So I took in all these lessons but each day I am still faced with the same question, am I a "Nigger?"

Sandburg's Poem, "Nigger," forced me to address that question once more. However, now that I am older words only have as much fire as I allow to burn and things like that don't bother me as much. So, at first, when I read the poem I felt down again, where were my people so bad, why did they not hold a place in a society that was built from the sweat and blood of my ancestor's. In the end, I accepted Sandburg's Poem for what it was. I am a "singer of songs." In fact, I am quite good at it. My daughter is a singer, my mother sings, and my brother would blow you away. I am a dancer. Look out now, "Watch my Feet." I can not say if Sandburg meant for his poem to be demeaning but it inspired me to know that I am not the negative image people see. I am a true woman, a woman of courage, a woman of strength yet a woman of softness. I don't eat pork so it is not me in the poem with the "Hands Like Hams" but my grandmother sure does and I love her. She had to eat ham, pork, soul food as we call it in order to provide sustenance for her family.

In fact, Sandburg poem is quite outdated. He says the nigger is "smiling the slumber dreams of old jungles." If you ask many black people have they ever been to Africa the answer will be No. They know nothing of Africa besides what is taught to them in the history books that leave out the truth. I am not bothered by the poem one bit. I am not bothered by the title one bit. The only things that bothers me is when people still see me as the "Nigger" when they could actually be one too.

I am glad that I had a chance to write about this poem because I think Sandburg was a victim of his time. He embraced a word that was so widely used to express a great part of American society, black people.