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The Belgians Cut Off My Hands In The Congo Poem

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The speaker of this poem tells different stories of himself in other people’s shoes. This means that he could not have experienced every single situation in life that he describes, but he can certainly put what others experience into perspective. In this poem, there are four different viewpoints that the speaker expresses. The stanzas are naturally split by these four viewpoints, and in these stanzas there is a viewpoint from around the world and one closer to home in the United States. “The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. They lynch me still in Mississippi,” is an example of a world and closer to home example. These two sentences also support and are evidence of the speaker’s viewpoint which is being seen and treated as a victim.
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