Ai, Gwendolyn Brooks, And Kwame Dawes

Ai, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Kwame Dawes are all contemporary African American poets. Their work often focused on different aspects of the African American community. Ai was known for her writing poetry about hard subjects. She was also known for writing poems that were graphic. Being multiracial, “1/2 Japanese, 1/8 Choctaw, 1/4 Black, and 1/16 Irish,” many of her poems were based on searching for and understanding idenity. Kwame Dawes is a Jamaican man who was born in Ghana. This essay will look at the African American struggle through the lens of misogynoir, education, and the destruction of black families. The first poem, “Tornado Child” by Kwame Dawes explores the African American struggle through misogynoir. Dictionary.com, describes

The poem tries to make black women other worldly but in turn minimizes her humanity. The black woman in the story is also reduced down to what she can do sexually for others. This is a prime example of misogynoir because the character’s womanhood is boiled down … We known that the poem is dedicated to Rosalie Richardson but the “tornado child” is nameless in the poem. There is little to describe the woman other then a generic description of her hair and the description of her thighs. The author does not give any details on her personality. The author may have done this purposely so that the reader could read it and apply the words to black women that they know. On the other hand, the genaricness of the description makes it hard to really apply to anyone women because it takes the complexity and multidementionalness of black women out of the poem. Black women are not one person, each woman has their own personality. The second poem, “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks signifies the African American struggle through education. The poem elaborates different ways that “we are cool.” The first way is through leaving school. The poem goes on further that they jazz june. According to dictionary.com, jazz is a vulgar term meaning to have sex. The poem also mentions that the speaker

One of the ways of doing this is through the war on drugs. Originally the war on drugs was meant to cut down crime rates and to get drugs out of the African American and Latino communities. Instead, drugs were pushed into the communities. Mandatory sentencing laws increased from a year in jail to five years in jail (Alexander, ). Disparities in the treatment drug offenders on the type of drugs began to widen also. An example of that is the drug cocaine. There is not any difference between the crack cocaine and powder cocaine other than the form it is in. However, the penalties are different based on the form. Crack cocaine has a higher mandatory sentencing sentence. This effects African American men because crack cocaine is traditionally used in the poor inner-city communities. On the other hand, powder cocaine is used mostly by