Blog 3 The Lynching

“The Lynching” by Claude McKay paints a very bleak picture of America in the 1920’s. The attitudes of the white people in this poem towards the black person who had been lynched are quite disturbing. The line, “And little lads, lynchers that were to be, Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee” (McKay, 927) is especially unsettling. The idea that young children would dance around a dead body as if it gave them amusement is difficult to think about. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior was once common in America, especially in the South. Writers like McKay brought attention to this issue of white suppression through their poetry. Luckily, today there could never be a lynching that was publicly celebrated.

I knew that the South was an immoral place after the civil war, but this poem depicted a reality I would never want to think about. If an entire community is in favor of public executions then that is certainly a place void of respect for human dignity. The children dancing around the corpse shows that they had already been taught the African Americans were not to be view as human beings, which makes me think that that is the reason racism is still around today. If parents teach such young children to disregard an entire race, then how do they have a chance to see it a different way? Those children are likely to grow up and teach their children the same ideas. It could take generations for that cycle to be broken, creating a place where racism is not only accepted but expected. This contributes to the struggles our country is still facing with prejudice of all different kinds.

This poem was extremely powerful in its language. Images like, “The ghastly body swaying in the sun” (McKay 927) really cause you to picture what was happening. The sympathy this stirs in our hearts causes lines like “The women thronged to look, but never a one Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue” (927) to be very confusing. This is because we as readers already feel sorry for a person we do not know and cannot actually see, so it is difficult to imagine how a person who is actually there could be so void of emotion. This clearly shows how different this time was. It is amazing how far we have come in a hundred years. Unfortunately, we still have farther to go. However, the fact that most people who have read this poem today find the actions of the white people shocking or disrespectful is means there is much hope for an even better future.

When reading this poem, it can be easy to feel ashamed of how people could have ever acted like this, and wonder if racism will ever truly go away. However, when you compare the actions of the people in this poem to how people act now, it can be hopeful. There are no longer communities that publicly murder people and then celebrate that murder the next day. When you think about it in those terms, it really seems as though we’ve come light years from where we were. There’s so much hope for the future, as humanity has proven time and time again that it can improve itself. We’re not there yet, but poets and writers, including Claude McKay, are helping humanity every day but showing us how we can be better.