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Elana Purvis
ENGL 2112/ MW 1:00
28 April 2015
The World of Racism
The issue of racism is not a new issue. For years and years, people have been at odds with
one another. This is interesting because every person on Earth together makes up the human race
so in that sense we are all equal. It is true to say that we are all different but yet we are all the
same. We are all put on the planet for a certain purpose and we all get blinded in some way or
another in our effort to achieve our purpose. Sometimes our blindness comes from our need to be
the best at what we do. We have an innate behavior to want to have power and dominance over
other people. This is where racism comes into play. We put this concept into practice to belittle
others so that we feel superior to them and therefore gain in our competition to be on the top of
the social ladder. Racism can be defined as the view that certain racial or ethnic groups are
biologically inferior to others and that practices involving their domination and exploitation are
therefore justified. Evidence of racism is in many works of art and literature through the
centuries. Before the problem of racism can be solved, our society as a whole must realize that
there is a problem. It is important to look at the people who are being showed racism and how
they feel to realize that there is a problem. This problem does not only exist with adults but also
with children as is evident in “The Little Black Boy” by William Blake.
“The Little Black Boy” is from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence. It is about a little
black boy who was born in the South, most likely in
slavery, and lives with his mother. His mother
teaches him about God and tells him a story of hope
Figure 1. A drawing of The Little Black Boy and his mother.
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about God (See Fig 1). She tells him that God gives light and life to all creation. He seems to be
mesmerized by this story and therefore daydreams about what she has told him. He then comes
up with ideas of what he thinks God looks like and what he thinks God’s character is like. The
little black boy has an innocence about him and thinks of himself as inferior to the white English
boy.
In “The Little Black Boy”, it is evident that the writer is showing how whites are viewed
and stereotyped as superior and therefore good. This affects the little black boy’s view of his
world. Starting in the second line of the poem, the little black boys says, “And I am black, but
oh! my soul is white...But I am black as if bereaved of light,” and this is sad because it shows he
feels the need to be a different color to be a person that is good enough. The story that his mother
tells him gives him hope that, even though the current situation that he is in is not ideal, one day
he can live in Heaven where there is equality. Alan Richardson, who reviewed “The Little Black
Boy” said, “Although he continues to portray himself in the role of servant to the English boy,
the black child is able by the end of the poem to see white and black skin as "equally opaque"
and his own, "southern" ability to bear the divine heat as bringing him closer to God, and placing
him in the role of older brother or protector to the white child,” this is true and we see that even
in his hope he is still under the curse of racism and does not even realize it (Richardson. Papers
on Language & Literature). The little black boy as an innocent child should not see color but the
fact that he does shows that racism is a real problem.
The little black boy believes that
God sees color and that white is superior
but is also loves. This is evident when the
little black boy says, “And then I'll stand
Figure 2. This is a painting of the Little Black Boy, the white boy, and God in
Heaven.
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and stroke his silver hair, and be like him, and he will then love me,” (See Fig 2). This view does
and does not line up with the Bible’s view of God. The Bible views God as a loving God also
and this is evident in that it says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is
love,” (New International Version, 1 John 3:8). The bible never speaks on race so how it views
how God sees race is not evident although most individuals who believe in God would say that
he stands for equality.
In America, we have things backwards. When it benefits us, we hold to the saying
that “It is not what is on the outside that counts, but what is on the inside that matters,” but we
turn around and do the exact opposite by forgetting who people are and only seeing their skin
color. This is upsetting to know that we stand on The Constitution that screams equality yet we
do not live by that. Some Americans know that they show racism to others who are not of their
skin color and show favoritism to the ones who have the same skin color. Even when they realize
their fault in this that they still somehow seem to keep their ideas backwards instead of fixing
them and giving everyone equal opportunities to been in their lives no matter the amount of
melanin they have in their skin.
Our society has come a long way from the racism that is present in the little boy’s life but
we still have a long way to go. Some of the same issues that were present in the times of slavery
still haunt us today just in a different form. The problems of racism tend to be more subtle in
today’s society. The only way to fix the problems of racism is to shed light on them. By shedding
light on the issues of racism, we can show how they affect people’s everyday lives and can
possibly make lives better because seeing someone being treated in a way that you would not
want to be treated could change how you treat another individual from the start. One way this is
being done is through movies, television, and social media. Another way, yet negative, is the
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riots that are going on throughout the U.S. in the past year. There have been many criminal cases
that involved an African American alleged criminal and a Caucasian cop where the cop shoots
and fatally injures the alleged criminal. This has been blamed on racial profiling. One of the
biggest examples of that was in Ferguson, Missouri. Another example is the riots currently going
on in Baltimore, Maryland where The National Guard has been called in. These rioters are
looting stores, fighting the police, and destroying cities. Even though this is not the ideal way,
the rioters are trying to make sure that their voices are heard. They want to make the inequality
that they feel known to everyone. The only way for our society to be better is if their feelings are
taken into consideration and then to make changes.
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Works Cited
Richardson, Alan. "Colonialism, Race, and Lyric Irony in Blake’s “The Little Black Boy”."
Papers on Language & Literature 26.2 (1990): 233. Galileo. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
The NIV True Love Waits Youth Bible. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996. Print.