Langston Hughes | Teen Ink

Langston Hughes

May 10, 2011
By ing.jak97 BRONZE, St. Louis, Missouri
ing.jak97 BRONZE, St. Louis, Missouri
1 article 0 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
At this moment there are 6,470,818,671 people in the world. Some are running scared. Some are coming home. Some tell lies to make it through the day. Others are just now facing the truth. Some are evil men, at war with good. And some are good, str


I sat there, staring at the teacher as she read the biography of Langston Hughes and I wondered if she knew that no one listened, or better yet, that no one wanted to hear about an African American poet. I looked around the room, and back and forth to the other students and I noticed that out of twenty four students, only four were of color. And I seemed to be one of the four students. As I was looking around, here and there, I also noticed that only three students out of twenty four were actually paying attention to the words that came out of the mouth of that lady we call teacher. A few of them gazing off into space or looking outside of the window. But me, I just sat there looking at white walls and white people. As I look at my classmates, I see people who are bound to make it but when I see my classmates of my color, all I see are false dreams and people deemed to failure. The teachers do not know that I do not want to hear about the things they speak of, but they still insist on teaching us. They try to convince me that the color white is the only thing that matters, and the color black is what holds this world back, but I beg to differ because last time I checked, the man we call 'Mr. President' is of color. They teach us about Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington in Social Studies and tell us how 'good ole Abe' freed the slaves but I disagree, because if so, he would've also freed me from these chains of lies and deceit. And I have a problem with politics, and I would've never voted for them, the next one either, I'm apart of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful. And with the color in my skin tone, the high in my cheek bones and the fullness of my lips, I am forced to let go of the dreams I had of being a Supreme Court Justice. They'd never let a woman of color decide the laws in this country.


The author's comments:
People may consider this article racist, but really, it's not, I'm just speaking the truth.

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