“A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon,” deals with the murder of Emmett Till, a black teenager murdered for allegedly flirting with a white cashier in Mississippi. This poem describes the struggles and discriminations of black urban life through the mind of a guilty white mother. The irregular stanza mirrors the unprecedented events proceeded from the attempts at desegregation. What begins with the ordinary day-to-day activities in an uninspired home ends with tragedy, bloodshed and brutality. The narration from a white female perspective mocks Southern ideals of racial and sexual purity, and questions the justification of the death of a young “Dark Villain.” Brooks uses the poem as a channel to ridicule white heroism by focusing on the muted power of Mamie Till. From the point of view of the Mississippi mother, Brooks details the regret and shame of Bryant’s society, and the idealized descriptions of the white southern illusion of racial and sexual purity. She exposes the cracks in the white family’s fairyland by highlighting the ruthlessness of racist white actions through a female …show more content…
Brooks conveyance of Bryant in the poem emphasizes her desire to continue her maternal and domestic life after the tragedy as casually as before, in hopes that the guilt will dissolve from her conscience. The “burned bacon” symbolizes her focus on being a wife and mother, rather than her responsibility in the incident. The agitated way she “hastened to hide it” implies covering up the evidence and carrying on as if nothing happened. By drawing “more strips from the meat case,” Brooks alludes to the power and privilege in race and class, as she is able to replace the bacon, while poorer black families would not have such an opportunity to pass up the already lacking food of any