McKay, Hughes, Cullen-2nd posting

I'm glad I waited until today to do the last posting because I have learned (through another class) some "other" information about Hughes and Cullen. I'm taking my senior seminar this semester, "Imagined Africa" and I'm doing my paper on the Imagined Africa through the eyes of Vachel Lindsay with a concentration on his racist poem, "The Congo." Some of the sources I have been looking at say Langston Hughes has Lindsay to thank for helping to make his resonant poems successful. Now I haven't done a lot of research on this, but it has really opened up my eyes. Based on what I already know about Hughes and the bibliographies I've read about him, I have never heard this mentioned before. Also, from what I have learned about Lindsay is that he was a blatant racist and he may have USED Hughes to help exploit his racist poem. I was just wondering if you know of Lindsay's poem and anything about his "tag-teaming" with Hughes?

I loved "The Shroud of Color." I had never read before now. It brought back memories for me with my own struggle with identity. Although I was not around for "legal segregation," I can vividly recall being a little girl, singled out in certain situations in school and wanting my mother to "bleach" my skin so I would look like the "other" classmates. I am really embarrassed to admit this, but certain things like this still haunt me today. I don't ever remember being called a nigger, but I do remember things that seemed (as a little girl) just as mean. For example, classmates would tell me and my best friend who was also black and named, "Erica" to stand on the outsides of them (white kids) because that's what OREO's are supposed to do. I never told my parents about any of this because I didn't know it was wrong. Teachers were no better, they would place us (the few black kids) symetrically in pictures and assemblies so they were basically providing the same type of atmosphere. In all of my elementary days I had 2 black teachers (one of which was not my primary teacher, but my talented and gifted teacher)!! This is why I am going to be a teacher.

This has nothing to do with McKay, Hughes, and Cullen, but I was glad you played the CD in class. I completely forgot about. I had only listened to some of it when I first got it, but it creates a nice background while I'm working on the computer (as I write even).