Explication Of Poem For Black BoysEssay Preview: Explication Of Poem For Black BoysReport this essayNikki Giovannis “Poem for Black Boys” is a poignant literary work that addresses several issues concerning the young black male in America and the conflicting views taken by members of the African-American community during the Civil Rights Movement with an inclination towards the peaceful movement perpetuated by the likes of Dr. Martin Luther king, Jr. and his non-violent contemporaries. Giovannis use of allusion, imagery and the sardonic humor of the speaker blend effortlessly to denounce all of the negative connotation of the young African-American male and to sound the battle-cry to black male youths that while society-at-large may place them in a box, it is up to them to prove society wrong.
•
Milo’s words aren’t simply about black children, as in the case of a video of a white man talking about how blacks are “disproportionately” discriminated against, but about any other demographic group, including children. [Editor’s note: this interview with a white man was done for “Black” Magazine and does not include any use of black characters or images.] As the narrator of “Mothers Gone Bad” and “The Devil In A Whirlpool” put it, “Everywhere is a black nightmare.”
“My point is that some very powerful forces are at work here too,” the narrator continued, “so be it. A lot of it has to do with the need to understand that, even with all of that black knowledge and some white knowledge, we are still not in any kind of place where we can understand how the black community could make this country better. I think if you’re not paying close attention to it, that’s just not good enough, and then all of a sudden some of us have a bad idea. But I think this is true even to some of these kids. But if you ask them, and they’re like “What do you think, like us, if these kids are really good,” they definitely are, and they might actually learn more about black culture and how you just work your way through it then I think they will agree that those are really important lessons. We don’t have to teach people something about ‘being black’ until we’re born, or ‘white.’ That sort of stuff is good but we don’t always learn everything.”
Another example is a post written by a father who wanted to take this issue to the next level. “I am not trying to hurt our kids. But I’m not trying to make any money at what I call an ‘exposure marketing’ business, or even a public awareness campaign that I would not get engaged in without a business. I know that it’s an opportunity but I’m not going to take it because I am so concerned about the kids being left out in the cold. It was my idea that I could put out a message that would be at least tenx more effective than what I would be doing. But ultimately I just didn’t get the work and the marketing that I wanted was destroyed and that’s how bad my message was that I had to take something out of the market to try and bring as much attention and attention to it as I could. It only takes four to six pages in a video and I wasn’t really happy with what I ended up doing when I did the job that I was doing. But I felt like I had to do some really dumb things.”
“I thought of my message, to this day I would say something like ‘Hey, you know what, this is an actual black-positive education campaign, I got it, here is what I’m doing.’”
As far as the future of black children, as mentioned, this book is about how they can figure out how to navigate the world and find comfort in all of their difficulties. In that spirit, as the narrator put it, a lot of books
Milo’s words aren’t simply about black children, as in the case of a video of a white man talking about how blacks are “disproportionately” discriminated against, but about any other demographic group, including children. [Editor’s note: this interview with a white man was done for “Black” Magazine and does not include any use of black characters or images.] As the narrator of “Mothers Gone Bad” and “The Devil In A Whirlpool” put it, “Everywhere is a black nightmare.”
“My point is that some very powerful forces are at work here too,” the narrator continued, “so be it. A lot of it has to do with the need to understand that, even with all of that black knowledge and some white knowledge, we are still not in any kind of place where we can understand how the black community could make this country better. I think if you’re not paying close attention to it, that’s just not good enough, and then all of a sudden some of us have a bad idea. But I think this is true even to some of these kids. But if you ask them, and they’re like “What do you think, like us, if these kids are really good,” they definitely are, and they might actually learn more about black culture and how you just work your way through it then I think they will agree that those are really important lessons. We don’t have to teach people something about ‘being black’ until we’re born, or ‘white.’ That sort of stuff is good but we don’t always learn everything.”
Another example is a post written by a father who wanted to take this issue to the next level. “I am not trying to hurt our kids. But I’m not trying to make any money at what I call an ‘exposure marketing’ business, or even a public awareness campaign that I would not get engaged in without a business. I know that it’s an opportunity but I’m not going to take it because I am so concerned about the kids being left out in the cold. It was my idea that I could put out a message that would be at least tenx more effective than what I would be doing. But ultimately I just didn’t get the work and the marketing that I wanted was destroyed and that’s how bad my message was that I had to take something out of the market to try and bring as much attention and attention to it as I could. It only takes four to six pages in a video and I wasn’t really happy with what I ended up doing when I did the job that I was doing. But I felt like I had to do some really dumb things.”
“I thought of my message, to this day I would say something like ‘Hey, you know what, this is an actual black-positive education campaign, I got it, here is what I’m doing.’”
As far as the future of black children, as mentioned, this book is about how they can figure out how to navigate the world and find comfort in all of their difficulties. In that spirit, as the narrator put it, a lot of books
Milo’s words aren’t simply about black children, as in the case of a video of a white man talking about how blacks are “disproportionately” discriminated against, but about any other demographic group, including children. [Editor’s note: this interview with a white man was done for “Black” Magazine and does not include any use of black characters or images.] As the narrator of “Mothers Gone Bad” and “The Devil In A Whirlpool” put it, “Everywhere is a black nightmare.”
“My point is that some very powerful forces are at work here too,” the narrator continued, “so be it. A lot of it has to do with the need to understand that, even with all of that black knowledge and some white knowledge, we are still not in any kind of place where we can understand how the black community could make this country better. I think if you’re not paying close attention to it, that’s just not good enough, and then all of a sudden some of us have a bad idea. But I think this is true even to some of these kids. But if you ask them, and they’re like “What do you think, like us, if these kids are really good,” they definitely are, and they might actually learn more about black culture and how you just work your way through it then I think they will agree that those are really important lessons. We don’t have to teach people something about ‘being black’ until we’re born, or ‘white.’ That sort of stuff is good but we don’t always learn everything.”
Another example is a post written by a father who wanted to take this issue to the next level. “I am not trying to hurt our kids. But I’m not trying to make any money at what I call an ‘exposure marketing’ business, or even a public awareness campaign that I would not get engaged in without a business. I know that it’s an opportunity but I’m not going to take it because I am so concerned about the kids being left out in the cold. It was my idea that I could put out a message that would be at least tenx more effective than what I would be doing. But ultimately I just didn’t get the work and the marketing that I wanted was destroyed and that’s how bad my message was that I had to take something out of the market to try and bring as much attention and attention to it as I could. It only takes four to six pages in a video and I wasn’t really happy with what I ended up doing when I did the job that I was doing. But I felt like I had to do some really dumb things.”
“I thought of my message, to this day I would say something like ‘Hey, you know what, this is an actual black-positive education campaign, I got it, here is what I’m doing.’”
As far as the future of black children, as mentioned, this book is about how they can figure out how to navigate the world and find comfort in all of their difficulties. In that spirit, as the narrator put it, a lot of books
In “Poem for Black Boys,” Giovanni uses allusion in two different ways; one to promote the non-violent movement and two, to show that the “by any means necessary” attitude adopted by the likes of H. Rap Brown and the Black Panther Party did nothing but further perpetuate the stereotype of the angry, drug-using, and violent black man. She alludes to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the stanza containing the Monopoly metaphor and reference. When she writes “DO NOT SIT DO NOT FOLLOW KING/GO DIRECTLY TO STREETS,” she is stating how following the non-violent movement of Dr. King was not what was wanted of blacks during that time. Following Dr. King and doing peaceful protests and sit-ins was not akin to the bestial image that could be conveyed when you had the likes of H. Rap Brown promoting violence and the “Burn Baby Burn” viewpoint.
What makes this piece so profound is the use of imagery, from the visual that is created when one tries to imagine “the big bad sheriff on his faggoty white horse” to the images of African-Americans playing “Back-to-Black/grow a natural and practice vandalism.” Giovannis literary work hits home because the images are so familiar. When she speaks of Indians and the sheriff/cowboy, it is identifiable. No one wants to be the Indian because they were portrayed as the villains, the sheriff was the hero but Giovanni sets the stage to explain why blacks are more like the Indians, because they too are made to be the villain. A perfect example of in the piece of how African-Americans are vilified comes at the end of the fourth stanza with the lines “grow a natural and practice vandalism/these are useful games (some say a skill even learned).” These two lines show how the black male, especially the young black male is viewed as nothing more than a thief skilled in the art of crime. Further evidence to the fact is found in the line “Im told it has full instructions of how to siphon gas and fill a bottle,” which is again alludes to H. Rap Brown, his cry of Burn Baby Burn and the use of pipe bombs and the like to demand equality.
The meaning and message