{"id":9071,"date":"2019-02-28T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T14:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/?p=9071"},"modified":"2019-02-28T09:00:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T14:00:50","slug":"i-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/2019\/02\/28\/i-too\/","title":{"rendered":"I, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

I, Too by Langston Hughes<\/strong><\/p>\n

I, too, sing America.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am the darker brother.<\/p>\n

They send me to eat in the kitchen<\/p>\n

When company comes,<\/p>\n

But I laugh,<\/p>\n

And eat well,<\/p>\n

And grow strong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tomorrow,<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be at the table<\/p>\n

When company comes.<\/p>\n

Nobody\u2019ll dare<\/p>\n

Say to me,<\/p>\n

\u201cEat in the kitchen,\u201d<\/p>\n

Then.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Besides,<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll see how beautiful I am<\/p>\n

And be ashamed\u2014<\/p>\n

I, too, am America.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This Black History Month, I pay homage to one of the most promising authors of the 20th<\/sup> century, Mr. Langston Hughes.<\/p>\n

I came across \u201cI, Too\u201d three years ago on a downtown 6 train platform. Hughes\u2019 words drew me; I missed at least four trains that day, re-reading the 18 lines over and over again until I could recite them from memory.   <\/p>\n

He, the \u201cdarker brother,\u201d was isolated, eating behind the closed kitchen doors as the white company relished in what I imagine to be a glamorous dinner of dinner rolls and stuffed pig roast with an apple in the cheek. But the speaker is unbothered; in the kitchen, alone, separated, he laughs, he eats, he grows.  He envisions the future \u2014 a \u201ctomorrow\u201d \u2014 when he is at the table when the white guests arrive. He is no longer closed in behind kitchen walls. He too is a guest, and the others with whom he dines will recognize his value. He, too is America and he too, sings America.<\/p>\n

The darker brother sang America when isolated. He laughed even as a recluse. Not only did he eat, but he ate well <\/em>with the promise of growing stronger than those fancy rich folks could fathom. We, the readers, pray for that tomorrow, the day when they<\/em> pass him the dinner rolls and cut him a slice of the roast. From start to finish, he is beautiful. Unfortunately, they<\/em> will recognize his beauty once he joins them. Then they will feel shame; he will feel pride.<\/p>\n

I read this poem nearly one hundred years later with the hope that people today still sing America and are America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I, Too by Langston Hughes I, too, sing America.   I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.   Tomorrow, I\u2019ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody\u2019ll dare Say to me, \u201cEat in the kitchen,\u201d Then.  …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":703,"featured_media":9072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}