Maya Angelou Research Papers

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”: The Hand Racism Played

“In the stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn’t really, absolutely know what whites looked like. Other than that they were different, to be dreaded, and in that dread was included the hostility of the powerless against the powerful, the poor against the rich, the worker against the worked for and the ragged against the well dressed” (Angelou 25). These two sentences set the premise for the rest of the book and really for Angelou’s life as a whole and how her opportunities would be shrouded by segregation. As a result of the time period that Maya Angelou grew up in, her skin color affected major components of her life, this influence is showcased as racism

To provide detail, one day, during Angelou’s childhood years a group of white children came up to her grandmothers shop and was tormenting her as this was occurring many thoughts raced through young Angelou’s head “How long could Momma [her grandmother] hold out? What new indignity would they subject her to?” (Angelou 32). Even the white children abused their white privilege as they tormented and embarrassed a grown women in front of her own home showing how dignified the white people felt and how put down the African American people were. After the incident, Angelou broke down in tears of anger because there was nothing she could do about how she felt or treated and, situations like this occurred multiple times in the novel. Furthermore, even her brother Bailey was subject to the truth of how the white people felt when he saw a black man’s body being pulled out of the river and the white cop who was surveying the scene had no respect for the loss of a man’s life and simply tossed him into the car. This is another way Angelou expressed the theme of her book, racism, as she showed how the mistreated people felt and even sparked sympathy and guilt from here