Poetry: A Medium Depicting the Racial Struggle of Blacks in Society

Poetry: A Medium Depicting the Racial Struggle of Blacks in Society 

Telephone Conversations

by Wole Soyinka 

            The price seemed reasonable, location

            Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived

            Off premises. Nothing remained

            But self-confession. “Madam,” I warned,

5         “I hate a wasted journey—I am African.”

            Silence. Silenced transmission of

            Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,

            Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled

            Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.

10         “HOW DARK?” . . . I had not misheard . . . “ARE YOU LIGHT

            OR VERY DARK?” Button B. Button A. Stench

            Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.

            Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered

            Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed

15         By ill-mannered silence, surrender

            Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.

            Considerate she was, varying the emphasis—

            “ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT?” Revelation came.

            “You mean—like plain or milk chocolate?”

20         Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light

            Impersonality. Rapidly, wavelength adjusted,

            I chose. “West African sepia”—and as an afterthought,

            “Down in my passport.” Silence for spectroscopic

            Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent

25         Hard on the mouthpiece. “WHAT’S THAT?” conceding,

            “DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.” “Like brunette.”

            “THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?” “Not altogether.

            Facially, I am brunette, but madam, you should see

            The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet

30         Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused—

            Foolishly, madam—by sitting down, has turned

            My bottom raven black—One moment madam!”—sensing

            Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap

            About my ears—“Madam,” I pleaded, “wouldn’t you rather

35         See for yourself?”

Ballad of the Landlod

By Langston Hughes

 

Landlord, landlord,

My roof has sprung a leak.

Don't you 'member I told you about it

Way last week?

Landlord, landlord,

These steps is broken down.

When you come up yourself

It's a wonder you don't fall down.

Ten Bucks you say I owe you?

Ten Bucks you say is due?

Well, that's Ten Bucks more'n I'll pay you

Till you fix this house up new.

What? You gonna get eviction orders?

You gonna cut off my heat?

You gonna take my furniture and

Throw it in the street?

Um-huh! You talking high and mighty.

Talk on-till you get through.

You ain't gonna be able to say a word

If I land my fist on you.

Police! Police!

Come and get this man!

He's trying to ruin the government

And overturn the land!

Copper's whistle!

Patrol bell!

Arrest.

Precinct Station.

Iron cell.

Headlines in press:

MAN THREATENS LANDLORD

TENANT HELD NO BAIL

JUDGE GIVES NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL!

 

 When speaking of famous American poets of the early 20^th century, one of the many great names that often gets thrown around is Langston Hughes. As an African-American poet during this part of American history, Hughes wrote about the quotidian life of blacks in Harlem. In his poetry, Hughes captivated readers, both white and black, by poetically depicting the harsh realities of African-American life during an age when racial discrimination was running rampant. One such poem is his Ballad of the Landlord. In this paper, we will take a closer look at Hughes’ poem and critique it through a number of lenses. In our critique, we will look at the bibliographical and historical aspects of the poem and the author, the structure of the poem, and the complex power struggle portrayed in the piece. The main focus of this critique will analyze the poem for its depiction of power struggles. Similarly, Wole Soyinka’s poem Telephone Conversation shows a similar power struggle in regards to racial struggles. We will analyze both poems, showing how each illustrates a power struggle based on race.

When reading/analyzing poem, one of the many aspects that can change the way you read it is by looking at when it was written. By familiarizing yourself with the happenings of that time, you can gain a better understanding about what is taking place in the poem. Some critiques, such as New Criticism, like to ignore the historical and biographical aspects of poetry. But I believe that understanding these elements are particularly useful in with these two poems, offering up a chance for a stronger and deeper reading. As mentioned before, the 1930’s were a time where America was filled with open racial discrimination. Because it was primarily whites in power, blacks we treated unjustly by the laws. The emergence African-American literature brought these struggles of both race and power to the forefront of readers’ minds. Blacks in America were often, and still sometimes, considered the Hegelian “Other.” This concept of the Other is often used in power struggles between dominate groups and groups that they dominate. One of the most popular uses of such language is apparent when speaking of power struggles when it comes to power struggles between male and female. With racial power struggles in America, as well as many places over the world, this comparison becomes similar to the struggle between the colonized and the colonizer. The voice of the colonized in this situation, the voice of blacks in America and the United Kingdom, lacked a unified voice that gave them a medium of expressing the injustice of their treatment. With the surfacing of canonical literature through the Harlem Renascence and Negritude movements, black writers were finally able to express the power struggle by depicting a classical example of colonizer and the colonized. We will see this injustice in Ballad of the Landlord when the black tenant is thrown in jail after giving an idle threat. We also see this in Telephone Conversation where the landlady inquires about the blackness of a man’s skin color when considering him for residency. While I argue that we should play close attention to the time these poems were written to heighten our awareness of the social problems of the time, another reading might suggest that the historical time period in which the poems were written does not matter. Because race is still an ever apparent issue in society today, a modern day interpretation could, in a way, be just as justified.

I think it is best to first explore these poems individually, first,  to get to the root of their similarities. Hughes’ poem, at the most basic level, shows the struggle between a black tenant and his landlord. But the poem is much, much more than that. This incident is supposed to serve as a microcosm, demonstrating the average African-American’s struggle to live regularly in a white world. Hughes uses the power struggle between the tenant and the landlord to show social roles in society. The tenant is a black man and the landlord is white. Reading this as a microcosm lets readers see that the struggle of power is much more than simply economically based. Nothing in this poem suggests that the black man is of inferior intelligence or physical prowess. The power struggle between the two individuals lies solely in the fact that the black speaker is of a lesser socio-economic standing simply because of his race.

In the poem the tenant has asked his landlord to fix up the home he is renting. The landlord has put off the request; much like the government (composed of mostly wealthy white men) had put off giving African-Americans equal rights at that time period. While the landlord has yet to fix up the place, he still is asking for the tenants rent. In protest, the tenant announces his refusal to pay until the landlord does his job to keep up the house. Appalled by the tenant’s refusal, the landlord threatens to kick him out. To this threat, the tenant purposes his own, saying that he would hit the man if he threw out his furniture. The landlord doesn’t take to this kindly, going to the police.

Clearly Hughes is looking to show the suppression of African-Americans, so naturally the text demonstrates the black perspective. The story told through the poem is one that privileges the black voice. First, because it is shedding light on the struggle of blacks in America, we can see that Hughes is calling attention to the injustice put upon the black race. This means that it is catered to bringing forth the idea that blacks are suppressed, therefore giving voice to the problem at hand. While doing this, however, he leaves out any white perspective. This omission of the white perspective shows whites as oppressors in this power struggle.

This poem clearly demonstrates the African-American’s struggle to live regularly in a white world. Hughes depicts this by carefully using voice, style, rhythm, and imagery to portray the problem: racial injustice. First we will talk about voice.

It is important to note that the speakers in the poem are all unnamed to illustrate that this is not a specific case, but a situation which is constantly occurring around the United States (especially in urban areas). This first part is told through a one sided dialogue. Through the first few stanzas, the only thing the tenant has done wrong is threaten to hit the landlord. This threat is an idle threat, being that he doesn’t intend on doing it right now. It is a hypothetical response to the landlord’s threat. The voice of the poem switches after the threat. You will notice that we don’t hear from the tenant anymore after this. What does this tell us? It illustrates that blacks who threatened violence were silenced. Now we hear the landlord – he cries out to the police. Here, the landlord over exaggerates the words/actions of the tenant in a hysterical fashion—marked by repetition and punctuation— causing the tenant to be arrested. Despite the excessive claims, the arrest and punishment illustrate that the landlord has the police and the law on his side.

Secondly, we will notice rhythm and style: The rhythm and style of the poem change in this poem for a reason. The first part of the poem has a sort of free flowing, jazzy sound that takes place in 4 lined stanzas. Changing from 4 lined, jazzy stanzas to short, choppy 3 lined stanzas shows a struggle – the struggle being the arrest. The change in diction also shows the difference in the way each race speaks English. The stylized jazzy rhythm of the tenant’s speech is representative of the vernacular used by many blacks. Studies in linguistics suggest that the different dialects expressed by different races does not show a lack of understanding of English language, but rather is used to distinguish oneself with a particular group of people. We see such examples with Chicano and Ebonics, also known as African-American Vernacular English. Though these languages, or sometimes categorized as dialects, may seem more “primitive” than Standard American English, many argue that they are just as complex because they have there own set of language rules which are not to be broken. By refusing to speak Standard American English, the colonized disassociate with their colonizer.

Another key thing that stands out about this poem is the title. Ballad of the Landlord seems to suggest that the injustice that takes place is occurring to the landlord, who is clearly illustrated as the oppressor. This is ironic because it is clearly the tenant that receives the injustice. This is important to note because the tenant is the man charged with the criminal act, or lack thereof, not the landlord. Noticing this, one might think a more appropriate name for the poem would be “Ballad of the [Tenant].” Hughes words the title of the poem in this way as a way of illustrating that, regardless of what actually takes place, the view of the white oppressor is privileged. This, like the rest of the poem, helps us to understand the unjust power struggle of race that took place in the scene depicted.

We went through the poem to analyze what it is saying about the life/struggles of blacks during this time period. By reading and critiquing this poem through the quasi-post-colonial lens, we have shown the struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed. Using the poem as a metaphor for racial struggles and illustrating the poem with concrete images of how blacks were socially suppressed by the government, this poem is an excellent means of demonstrating the unlawful injustice that faced the African-American community.

Like Ballad of the Landlord, Telephone Conversation is about an African man who looking to rent an apartment. One important difference, I would argue, is that the writer of this poem is writing for a very similar but different audience. While Hughes is writing during the time where blacks were discriminated against in America, Soyinka is writing about similar injustices in the United Kingdom. This suggests that the racial/power struggle between blacks and whites in America was not, and is not, just an American problem. The struggle seems to come from Eurocentric thought. As mentioned before, the struggle is based on the power struggle between the colonized and the colonizer. Like in America, the black body is viewd was what Foucault called the “docile body.” This is important to notice when comparing the two works because it elevates the problems from a national scale to a global scale.

As part of the process of searching for a place to live, the speaker of the poem, a black man he calls a landlady to inquire about the availability of one of her residences. It is also important to notice that this is different from Hughes’ poem. In Ballad of the Landlord, the struggle is between two men. Here, the struggle is between a man and a woman. This suggests that the power struggle between races takes place not just between men in a phallocentric society. Women at this time, in both America and the UK, were often, and still are, often viewed as the oppressed in a power struggle based on gender. This depiction of a struggle between a black man and a white woman suggests that the racial power struggle is greater than the gender based one which is also heavily written upon.

During the conversation between the potential tenant and landlady, the man decides it is in his best interest to come out and explain that he is black. If this was a post-racial society, the man’s race should be irrelevant in regards to whether or not he will be permitted to obtain an apartment. But it the man’s “self-confession” in lines 4 and 5 suggest that there is something wrong with being of African descent. To this the landlady replies, "HOW DARK?" (line 10). This brash, impersonal replay makes me recall the work of Fanon. In his book Black Skin White Masks, the Negritude writer explains the concept of “lactification” (47). He explains that the goal is to ‘whiten-up’ the race to adhere to a Eurocentric concept that white is good and black is bad. "...LIGHT OR VERY DARK?" (lines 10/11) the landlady continues. To this we hear the inner-monologue struggle to reply. He thinks of different shades of red – non-of-which were any less “red” than another. When asked to compare his skin color to white or dark chocolate, the man refuses to answer using the language of his oppressor: "West African sepia," he replies (line 22). His response is as comical and perplexing to readers as it is to the landlady. Rather than answer in the cut-and-dry way asked of him, the speaker chose an ambiguous response that not only showed off his intelligence, but also puzzled the landlady. He goes on to explain, in other terms, that his face is "brunette," his hands and feet are a "peroxide blond," and his bottom is "raven black" (lines 29-32). The speaker’s response is met with anger. As he senses the phone call coming to an end, the speaker ends his conversation with the landlady and the reader with the question: "Wouldn't you rather see for yourself?" (lines 34-35).

Both works of poetry are very similar because they not only depict the power struggle between tenant and proprietor, but the struggle of race and how blacks, being the minority, are forced to take on the role of the oppressed in this power struggle. Through their respective works, both Hughes and Soyinka illustrate poetically the racial struggles many blacks face/faced when dealing with situations of power. Though neither author uses their work to comes out and suggest a way to subjugate the problems, they both offer a Foucaultian observations about how the power struggle negatively, and unjustly, effects blacks on a day-to-day basis.

Bibliography

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove, 1967. Print.

Hughes, Langston. “Ballad of the Landlord” 1935. Vintage Hughes. New York: Vintage, 2004. Print.

Soyinka, Wole, and James Gibbs. Critical Perspectives on Wole Soyinka. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents, 1980. Print.