Poems on Race

         Race is an issue that has played a huge in American for years and has prevented people from being who they want to be. People act differently in certain situations so they would be accepted by a group of people or society as a whole. In Natasha Trethewey’s poems “Flounder”, “White Lies”, “Microscope”, and “Saturday Matinee” she talks about race in different perspectives. She discusses the effect of race on people and why she imitated people’s behaviors and decided not to choose a race to belong to.  While growing up, Trethewey was faced with racial issues. She was of a mixed background, one of he parents was white and the other was black and this led to her being caught up in a dilemma of wanting to be accepted by both races. Although Trethewey could make a decision on which race she would belong to, she feels it is better not to choose one.

Firstly, Trethewey decided not to choose a race so she could have the freedom of being whom she wanted depending on whichever situation she found herself in. Being born of two different races puts pressure on her to try to please both races and be accepted by both blacks and whites. In her attempt to please one race she has to deny the other race. In Trethewey’s poem “White lies” she says “I could even / keep quiet, quiet as kept, / like the time a white girl said/ (squeezing my hand). Now / we have three of us in this class.”(Lines 14-18)  Instead of telling the white girl she was mixed she accepts the white girl’s misconception and decides to act like she was a pure white girl. Trethewey does this not because she was ashamed of the black race but because she did not want to be treated differently if she was suspected to be of a mixed race. She did not want people’s view of her to be distorted just because of her race. Trethewey also wanted to feel rich like the other white girls. Trethewey says “I could easily tell the white folks / that we lived uptown, / not in a pink and green / shanty-fied shotgun section / along the tracks. I could act / like my homemade dresses / came straight out of the window of Maison Blanche.” (Lines 7-14 white lies) Trethewey enjoyed pretending to be a rich white girl and acting like other white girls. She enjoyed being mixed and having the ability to pretend to be someone whom she wasn’t. She wanted to have the freedom to switch between which race she chose depending on the situation she found herself in.

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Secondly, Trethewey decides not to choose a race because by choosing one race over the other because she might offend her family members. She felt free associating with people from both races and she felt pressure and harassment from the other race when she tried to pick one race over the other. In Trethewey’s poem White Lies Trethewey says, “But I paid for it every time / Mama found out. / She laid her hands on me, / then washed my mouth with Ivory Soap.”(Lines 19-23 ) Trethewey implies that when she once tried to choose the white race over ...

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