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Langston Hughes Landlord

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In “Ballad of the Landlord”, by Langston Hughes, the poem describes a confrontation between a landlord and an African American tenant, who is probably living in the ghetto of a big American city. The tenant tries to inform the landlord of the terrible condition the home is in, leaky roofs and broken steps, and reminds him that maintenance is much needed, but the landlord seems to ignore his problems and tells him that his ten-dollar rent is due. The tenant hearing this response from the landlord angers him and he refuses to pay the rent until the maintenance problems are fixed. The tenant then threatens him by saying that he’ll cut off the heat and throw his furniture onto the streets, and the tenant responds with a threat also. He threatens that he will throw a punch to the lips to shut him up. The landlord calls the police because of that threat and the tenant is sentenced 90 days without bail imprisonment. The speaker is trying to convey the extent of social injustice in America. Ballad of the Landlord discusses the unfair inequality between African American tenants and Caucasian landlords. The landlord exploited the tenant and the police helped the landlord by exploiting the tenant even more. Also, the media was aware of the incident and portrayed the …show more content…

The reader can easily visualize the poem and see the tenant and landlord going back and forth. Imagery is used to put the reader into the tenant’s situation like when Hughes writes, “Copper whistle!”, “Patrol bell!”, and “Iron cell”. There are two significant words in the poem and they are repeatedly used. Those words are “tenant” –a slave who is treated poorly- and “landlord” –refers to dominant person-. When Hughes wrote, “The roof needs to be fixed”, the message that is given off from that is that the world’s human rights needs to be

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Evicted by Matthew Desmond is a novel that tells the stories of families struggling to pay the rent in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In this book, just like Missoula, the stories are intertwined with each other. So far the stories have followed two landlords: Sherrena Tarver and Tobin Charney. Sheerena owns property all over the predominantly black north side of Milwaukee. She is strong and caring, but I think she is not fair to her tenants.

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“The Czar of all the Russias is not more absolute upon his own soil than the New York landlord in his dealings with colored tenants. Where he permits them to live, they go; where he shuts the door, stay out.” (Riis 148). By saying that, Riis said that the landlord has complete control over where the blacks live. The average African-American paid $10 to every white man’s $7.50.

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Sherrena is a landlord in 'Evicted' by Matthew Desmond, she is world class American Landlord. Before she was a fourth-grade teacher then she decided to specialize in black poor neighborhoods where "she owned thirty-six units, all in the inner city," (13). Due to the fact she owned so much property, Sherrena had her own rules/opportunities. One of those rules/ opportunities was that tenants could do an odd job for the property they were living in if they wanted to prevent an eviction for not making rent payments. Lamar is one the Tenants that takes advantage of this opportunity because he doesn't have a stable income, has no legs and receives no financial assistance for his disability.

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The book describes the landlord, Sherrena, as well as other landlords, as having “rent collectors”. The “rent collectors” are vehicles used when going to meet with tenants that have a bigger purpose than only collecting rent. They usually carry a ladder, plumbing supplies, toolboxes, and a pistol, amongst other items. The “rent collectors” are a symbol of the landlords attempting to be equal to the tenants, rather than being seen superior to them. Though Sherrena has a lipstick-red Camaro at home, she uses an old 1993 Suburban with 22-inch rims as her “rent collector”.

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In more than one storyline of the novel’s featured families, a housing eviction leads to job loss, which Desmond uses as an example of how eviction can produce class inequality. One such character was Ned, a white man who loses his job after missing two workdays to help his family move; Desmond argues that this is not an isolated incident. If given an eviction notice, the renter must dedicate a significant portion of time to resolving their eviction with the court, finding a new place to live, and moving their possessions to the new location. Most cannot find new housing right away, forcing them to move their property into a storage

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The writings and pictures in Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives offer a vivid portrayal of the poor living conditions of New York's tenement houses and illustrated the necessity for progressive reform in the late 1800s. A vicious cycle held many of the tenants in its grasps through a combination of the landlords' rent prices and a lack of sustainable incomes. To Riis, the landowners looked like “tyrants that sweeten the cup of bitterness with their treacherous poison” (166). In the destitute areas, crime grew rampant, and the poor packed themselves into the tenements. Disease and illness worked adverse to any improvement of living conditions.

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Introduction “How The Other Half Lives,” was written by Jacob A. Riis and published in 1890 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Jacob Riis had one reason for writing this book, and that was to expose to the upper class people of America the deplorable conditions of the tenements, and the gross abuses committed by the landlords who owned them; and to this he proposed a series of ways to correct the then current situation. This book became revolutionary during it ’s it time when immigration was at an all time high, and terrible tenements were popping up all around the city; it takes on this issue of the tenement with a ferocity that shocked all of America, and lead the way for reform .

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In the second half of his book Evicted, Matthew Desmond continues to explore the underprivileged housing world and the social and economic strains it places on the poorest inhabitants of Milwaukee, WI. Through case studies of various families, Desmond uncovers the inherent link between victims of substance abuse, mental illness, race and ethnicity discrimination, poverty, and their subsequent housing discrimination. Although each chapter delves a little deeper into the situation of a certain individual or family, Desmond’s voice as a researcher is not present until the Epilogue.

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In Carol B. Stack’s book, All Our Kin, Stack journeys into The Flats, an African-American poverty-stricken community and she narrates her one on one experience with the community themselves. Stack observes that the black urban poor or any other poverty-stricken communities do not come into poverty from an individual’s experience but comes from middle and upper classes, due to their need for lower class labor, which they think is needed for the economy. Stack also talks about the lifestyle of the people in the Flats and their survival to live on within their community. Stack discusses the two pre-requisites that Stack claims that the poor need to accomplish in order to get out of poverty and also the treatment of the poor in the flats from the larger members of the society.

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He speaks about the story of Clyde Ross, a black man who fled horrible conditions in Mississippi to find work in Chicago. Like many Americans Ross dreamed of owning a home. However, the only way for a black person to buy a home in Chicago in the mid-twentieth century was to buy from predatory “contract” sellers who charged unbillable rates with few legal protections for buyers. Clyde said “To keep up with his payments and keep his heat on, I took a second job at the post office and then a third job delivering pizza.” Like many blacks in Chicago at the time he got two jobs just to keep up with the payments of the house, overall being kept away from his

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What is the American Dream? Many people have tried to explain the dream, or how they feel about the dream. Most try to be all patriotic and country loving like Walt Whitman... But others like Langston Hughes reveal a darker side of the dream. Whitman hears America Singing.

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Many sharecroppers tried to escape from their place of work because they wanted a better life for themselves, while others felt content with getting short-changed by the white man. This notion of self-help and self-improvement began in James’ family with his great-great-uncle, Oscar Gaines, when he escaped his duties as a young laborer in Savannah, GA. Oscar managed to find a job chopping cotton for a white man who was not bothered by his skin color (McBride 45). The story of old Oscar Gaines would surface for generations to come in the Gaines/Brown family as a story of courage and self-improvement. While James Brown’s father Joe did his best to take care of his son, he could not raise him all alone.

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The Tenant has no choice but to move out in search for a nonviolent life. The security guards, farmers, and officers were violating the Okies that migrated to California. There wasn't violence among themselves as much as how officers, farmers, guards influenced on them. For example, the guard killed Casy and Tom returned the favor. Also, when the officer started shooting at the crowd of migrating people and then shot a lady in the hand.

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“Poverty and Profit in the American City”, as described by Matthew Desmond, a Harvard sociologist; within His book Evicted. Within this book describes the harsh realities of the American people who struggle day-to-day providing a shelter over their families’ heads. Not getting enough from the economy, but putting a lot into it creates problematic issues and disputes between renters and landlords. Although this may not be a struggle you as reader can relate to, but it is worth a reading to receive intake on the problems American Cities face today. Evicted is a book that explains the reality from those who are victims to poverty from those who profit off of those victims.

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In Urban areas the emphasize of poor and homeless falls onto the laps of a large number of African Americans. Desmond, focused on the Milwaukee area and explained that during the second half of the twentieth century, manufacturing jobs moved overseas because of cheaper labor, this affected countless African Americans because half of them had jobs in manufacturing (24). Lamar, who lost his legs and lived in an apartment that was falling apart, was unable to get SSI and could not find decent job in his condition. With no decent income and a rent to pay how does one survive? Gathering enough money to pay for a roof over one's head is a huge priority in Evicted.

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