Aint I a Woman, Black Art Essay

Submitted By tgraham9
Words: 323
Pages: 2

Poem Responses The poem, “AIN’T I A WOMAN” by Sojourner Truth is a simple worded poem with a strong message in it. A strong point is when she talks about how that men say a woman should be treated the best, and yet she is treated basically the opposite of the best and she is a woman. Also, when she uses a metaphor to describe how white men with a higher intellect won’t share their knowledge with African Americans or women is a powerful couple of sentences. Sojourner mentions that they have nothing to lose by sharing their knowledge with her, because it’s not like they’re going to lose anything by helping other people become smarter. However, the best part is at the end of the poem when she points out that men say that women can’t have as many rights as them because Christ wasn’t a woman, and then says, “Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with him.” The second poem, “Black Art” by Amiri Baraka was very confusing most of the time, but is clearly Amiri being angry about African Americans not having enough rights. He also seemed to be racist at times against people of the Jewish faith, which is weird because that would be a double standard. When Amiri says, “poems that kill. Assassin poems, Poems that shoot. Guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys and take their weapons leaving them dead” he is talking about how he does not want a peaceful protest, but an active resistance against their enemies.