Incident by Countee Cullen (1925)

Explorations of the text

1. There is a great tension between the nature of the interaction between the two boys, the Baltimorean treat him as an outsider by staring strangely at him and even though he smile towards him. Then he called the speaker a “Nigger” which showed that he is a racist. The interaction is awkward and deeply living a scar on the speaker’s memory.
2. The speaker just couldn't take out the incident with the Baltimorean because he was expecting a warm greeting or a smile from him but instead of that he just embarrassing the speaker by poked him out and called him a “Nigger”. It caused then speaker losing all the excitement of coming to that place and the incident become a permanent hurt for him.

The Reading/ Writing Connection

1.   I also happen to experience a prejudice before, though I never take it seriously but it does hurt on that time. My situation will be because of the course that I took that might a bit lower in value rather than those in science courses, I didn’t take it personally because it just a way people want to make you feel down, in fact I know that we all more better than we thought we could be. The persona having a hard time forgetting this incident due to his age; he is too young to perceive people’s judgement, he only looking for exciting friendship but end up being hurt because of the nature that he was born with that colour of skin. I could understand him and I thought also this an incident to the Baltimorean boy because he fail in appreciating ones true beauty that lies within the heart.

Ideas for Writing

1.   The form and rhyme actually helps the reader to truly engage with the flow of the poem. It is like narrating a simple child story but inside the poem bound with a deep and serious message. Playing with the sound of the word broaden our imagination of the situation the persona trying to convey.
2.  One of the magnificent functions of language is to provoke. The persona are totally effected by the word “Nigger” which is not meant anything to him if he happen not to understand its meaning, but he know what is the meaning behind the word and that refer to his race and skin colour. For that reason he couldn't accept the word being appointed to him whether the Baltimorean ever meant what he say or not. Language can be very powerful when we can use it to change one opinion about every aspects of their life, just like the persona that could be changing his mind perception about the white people attitude because of the incident of the word “Nigger”.

References

Schmidt, Jan Zlotnik and Lynne Crockett. Portable Legacies: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction. United States of America: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009.