Biswas 1 Aditi Biswas Dr. Anne Raine ENG 1124 DA00 Essay 1, version 2 10 December 2021 American racism: white people and black people are not (and should not be) separate or distinct. Instead, they are “part” of each other. American identity comes from the connections between different races in the country-not the bias that divides them. "Theme For English B" starts the poem by introducing2q a black student in a college context where he is asked to write a page about himself by a white teacher. It was not a big problem until the speaker distinguishes the reality of racism which can be noticed even in a class setting in America. The speaker raises some complicated questions about race, identity, and belonging in the poem. Despite the difference of Identity, race, and a sense of “self” between black and white Americans, “Theme for English B” thus makes a powerful argument that being an American is about the connections that bind together communities and races— despite the very real racial prejudice that separates them. Emerson also accepts this idea by suggesting the idea of “Man” to be an essential but small part of the broader society (88). “The American Scholar” by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the poem “Theme for English B by Langston Hughes give the same energy in presenting people from different backgrounds or societal statuses as a united entity of society. In the essay “The American Scholar” Ralph Waldo Emerson argues that humans are all connected through the universe, and they are not just one thing, but many things that bring them together as people (88). Because people from different jobs make their parts to create a broader society and they are necessarily interconnected (88). Biswas 2 Emerson is projecting the idea of unity despite the differences between social statuses while stating even individualism actually creates a more progressive society, it is the unity that brings “Man” closer to mankind and truly benefits all (88). When Emerson talks of “Man” being the greater society divided into many different roles (88), it strikes as quite similar to when Hughes’s speaker says the student and his teacher are part of each other (Hughes Line 27). He says, “that's American.” (Line 28). Here both the authors Emerson and Hughes are trying to focus on the large scale of humanity by connecting every individual from the society. From Emerson's essay "The American Scholar", the line "The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances." (97) is relevant to Hughes’s poem. A lot of what makes up our identity is our appearance, our race, and what we look like. However, what this quote means is when it comes to being a scholar, it is our words and ideas that should stand out regardless of our appearance. In the speaker's assignment, it should be what is written on the page that is the most important, not someone’s race or identity. So, Emerson’s essay and Hughes’s poem both reflect the same energy about being associated with each other in society despite having a difference in the race. Hughes begins his poem “Theme for English B” with the common differences between black and white people, like struggling to determine his identity, and where he belongs (Line 2). The student challenges the idea of living at the Harlem "Y" as a black person and experiencing the kind of unproblematic sense of "self,"(Line 5) "home,"(Line 9) and "truth" (Hughes 5 – 11). Hughes challenges the significant contrast between the black and white students of their home address, age, skin color, and music taste (Line 19). Being black does not inspire the student to dislike what white people enjoy. Though his musical tastes include jazz and blues, still he appreciates classical music. Hughes progresses the poem by addressing less about race and Biswas 3 more about who they are as a person. The uniqueness of a black people’s experience is acknowledged (lines 17-19) if only to note its disparaging effects on identity (“Me-who?”) (Line 15). The essential unity of all races from a black viewpoint is affirmed by noting the problems and pleasures common to all Americans (Lines 21-26). Despite these differences of identity, the speaker tries to present the relatedness of this black student and white teacher as they are both “American” (Line 28). In Hughes’s poem, he says, as a black person, the student likes to do the usual things other white students do in daily life like eating, sleeping or being in love (Line 16). He says, “I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races.” (Lines 20 21). The feeling of being alone and feeling like an outsider is explained well throughout this poem but some moments show the student’s hopefulness and positive mindset of how everyone is alike in different ways. To the speaker, race seems less like an intimate part of his identity, and more like an imposition, something used to classify him and to deny him opportunities (Litchart). Sometimes, his professor doesn’t “want to be part of me” (Line 29) because of the mistrust that has been created between the student and the teacher. And, equally, the speaker doesn’t “often want to be a part of you.” (Line 30). Yet, the speaker insists, they cannot deny their connection, the way they are linked together as they both share the same society and are both “American” (Line 28). Even though the professor is white and enjoys a prestigious job, he is “somewhat more free” than the speaker (Line 35). But they still learn from each other: “As I learn from you, / I guess you learn from me.” (Line 32 33). Even the black student and the teacher do not want to be recognized in a similar manner, they are a part of American society. Biswas 4 The unbiased idea of unity and equality in a society can be observed in both Hughes and Emerson’s writing. For example, a passage from “The American Scholar” by Emerson can be compared to Hughes’s poem is, “Past learning, the influence of books- pose great danger. Every book is only a partial truth biased by society's standards when it was written. Each age must create its own books and find its own truths (Emerson 90).” It is speaking on how Emerson believes that if we are only to praise the ideas of the past we are not exploring new eyes and are thus following outdated ideas. This relates to Hughes’s ideas because in his poem he is asking why we continue to treat black and white people as separate when truly the only difference is skin color. When we look further into this idea it is revealed that society is carrying these biased beliefs from the very past which creates racist behavior in the present. Also, a passage in Emerson's "American Scholar" that correlates with this poem is "Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office, – to each element. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to drill, but to create..." (93). Hughes’s poem also discusses college and the concept of being different with the like-minded goal of other students to become educated. Learning is a shared experience among anyone willing to learn. It should not be different for different classes or races of people in society. Here both the authors are resonating the same idea about education. As a part of mankind, all people are one divine soul. This message correlates with Emmerson's quote on page 88 of his work, "The American Scholar" (1837) where it states, "Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all". Here Emmerson is expressing that all of Mankind is equal, or can become whatever they choose to be, so, all of mankind is on the same condition. They both are sharing the same idea of unity between people of all social statuses and races in a community. Biswas 5 The question and answer stated in the “Theme of English B” in lines 27-28 and the planned ambiguity of "colored” and "white" in them suggest the speaker's expression of a distinctively personal bias from his individual experience, as well as a depth of inherited, cultural experience. His page cannot be white because he is not white, and because he has experienced too much to leave the page empty (Morris and Danial 25). Henceforth, the poem presents its deep meaning of racism in quick, and short lines, and states the highest peak in lines 39-40. At the beginning of "Theme for English B," an uncertain, questioning tone describing the teacher's assignment to write a page about himself, asking if he can produce something "true" since he's so different from the other students is visible (Scharnhorst and Gary 57). However, as he describes his struggle as a minority student, the tone of the poem gradually becomes more assertive. At the end of the poem, the speaker feels the urge to directly confront the racial discrimination and serves the fallacies of the assignment. In my opinion, the poem touches on the idea that we’re all together in certain ways but still not in enough ways. In both Emmerson and Hughes, the idea of social standards, conforming to the social norm, and how powerful the society’s opinion can affect someone comes out. We all need to become one and there should not be any labels attached to our name because no matter how much progress the world has made like Langston said we are still “somewhat more free.” (Line 35). In Hughes’s poem, the student concludes forthrightly that he obviously cannot be white, inside or outside, because he is the product of a more diffused culture (Vinisha 97). Although he has a different skin color than his peers, they are all Americans in some common criteria. Therefore, in order to increase the diversity, richness, and truth, he, his classmates, and his instructor will have to learn from each other, by bringing a different perspective to the table. That is the main reason we should read this poem by Hughes. Also, we Biswas 6 notice some points in Hughes that are not in Emerson’s, for example, Hughes starts with the differences between race and the sense of identity between black and white students (Line 5) which is not visible in Emerson’s essay, as it only shows greater bonding of mankind (Emerson 88). Also, Hughes focuses on specifically American black students in a classroom setup while addressing his struggle as a student of race among all white students, but Emerson focuses only on the wide idea of equality, not on any specific situation. Lastly, it is disclosed that student-teacher both are able to learn from one another through their differences – without wanting to change anything about themselves. In order to recognize what’s truly American, both students and professors need to recognize racism and voluntarily decrease the difference between them and understand the deep connections of human beings on a larger scale. Biswas 7 Works Cited Hughes, Langston. “Theme for English B by Langston Hughes.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2002, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47880/theme-for-english-b. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The American Scholar." 1837. Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Robert D. Habich, Broadview Press, 2018, pp. 87-104. Altman, Toby. "Theme for English B." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 29 Oct 2019. Web. 20 Oct 2021. Jennings, Frank G. Change in Higher Education, vol. 2, no. 3, Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1970, pp. 56–59, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40161057. Scharnhorst, Gary F. “27. Hughes’ Theme for English B.” The Explicator, vol. 32, no. 4, 1973, pp. 57–59., https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.1973.11483220. Morris, Daniel. "Go Home and Write a Page Tonight": Subversive Irony and Resistant Reading in "Theme for English B"." The Langston Hughes Review, vol. 24-25, 2010, pp. 20-30,156. ProQuest, https://login.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/gohome-write-page-tonight-subversive-irony/docview/1419726431/se-2?accountid=14701. Vinisha, B.V. "Racial Discrimination and Identity Crisis: Black Americans in Select Poems of Langston Hughes." Language In India, vol. 20, no. 9, Sept. 2020, pp. 97+.
