Audre Lorde on the Concept of American Dream

The American Dream, in simple terms is the idea that anyone, regardless of race, gender, age, or social class can achieve their own version of success. For many people, it consists of getting a good education, finding a job with decent pay, meeting the love of their life, and settling down and having children. There has been an ongoing debate over the years on what the American dream means and who it applies to. Writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jason Hill have set the two main contrasting viewpoints on the topic. On one hand, Coates believes the dream is not real because black people cannot participate in the American dream whereas Hill thinks the dream can apply to anyone as shown through his experiences and his colleagues.

Audre Lorde is known for writing poems to express her thoughts and feelings about the racism and sexism she dealt with throughout her life as a lesbian woman of color. For example, in the poem “Power”, she recounts a historical event where a ten year old boy named Clifford Glover was shot by a police officer Thomas Shea after trying to run away and being accused of robbing a cab. The title itself can be tied to her role as a writer to take her pain and anger and turn it into something beautiful. It also foreshadows how powerless the black community feels like when the police officer was found guilty and but then the verdict was overturned and he was released. The first stanza is broken down into four lines to emphasize tones of anger and sadness when she says “The difference between poetry and rhetoric/is being ready to kill/yourself/instead of your children” to express her tone of anger and sadness (Lorde, lines 1-2). The main message Lorde is giving through this poem is that everyone has their own sense of power in a way such as her writing, the legal system, and how powerless black people feel.

In the poem “The Black Unicorn”, Lorde uses literary devices such as repetition to convey a message about racial injustice of African Americans. Throughout the poem, the phrase “black unicorn” is repeated often and used to represent African Americans and adjectives such as greedy and impatient are used to symbolize the stereotypes of black people at the time. It seems that the black unicorn is ignored and not considered to be real. In lines 6-7 of the poem, she is being mocked because of her anger for african americans being treated unfairly. The unicorn is also personified as it can symbolize inhumane police brutality on people of color. What was once a beloved mythical creature quickly turned to becoming hated and feared by many. The last line of the poem says, “the black unicorn is not/free” which emphasizes the fact that african americans do not have the freedom and rights they deserve (Lorde, lines 14-15).

In the poem “Coal”, Audre Lorde uses figurative language to describe her feelings of receiving sexist and racist remarks towards her. For example, imagery is used when she says “Some words are open like a diamond/on glass windows/singing out within the crash of passing sun” (Lorde, lines 8-10). This is a good example of how she uses very specific word choice to describe her feelings and the way people's comments towards her have affected her emotionally. She also uses personification when she says, “Some words live in my throat breeding like adders” (Lorde, lines 16-17). Words cannot actually live in her throat but they will have an effect on her life. Instead of being erased, women can use words and poetry as a weapon against the labels that society puts upon them. The title of the poem is used to represent her pride as an African-American woman. She explains how even though she was insulted for years, she did not let the hurtful words get to her and saw herself as coal turning into a diamond.

In the article, “An Open Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates”, Hill writes about how he loves America because he can do what he wants with his life unlike in his own country and he does not have to worry about hiding the fact that he is gay man of color. In contrast to Coates and Lorde, the American dream makes himself visible. Unlike Coates who believes the American dream is a lie and black people are brought into believing it, Hill believes that the American dream is not something you are forced to do, but something you want to do and are willing to put the effort into. As an example, he mentions his friend Thai, a Vietnamese immigrant who couldn’t speak any English when first coming to America but later on went to college, earned his baccalaureate, and opened his own restaurant. He explains how in Coates view, white america is responsible for black crime and how when a black man shoots someone, he is not actually the one responsible for the crime, but white supremacy instead. He then concludes, saying Coates book “...reads primarily like an American horror story and, I’m sorry to say, a declaration of war against my adopted country” (Hill 2017).

In the New York Post article, Cherry makes a conscious effort to agree with Hill as shown in the fourth paragraph when he says, “Coates promotes the view that blacks are helpless to improve their situation given the white supremacy they face” (Cherry 2016). Cherry is opposing Coates as he is basically saying that he only writes about his own perspective to his son which is not accurate because it does not take into consideration the experiences of other people of color. In his experience, it seems like only white people can participate in the dream but that is simply not true. The title itself represents which side of the debate it will be taking and clearly tells the reader that what they are about to read will be against Coates ideas. He supports Hill when talking about how white people cannot blame blacks for the high homicide rates because in reality, most homicide victims are the same race as the murderers themselves.

Coates brings up the idea of love often throughout his novel, Between the World and Me. He talks about how love changed him as a person and the women he fell for during his time at Howard University such as the girl with the long dreads who showed him that “love could be soft and understanding; that, soft or hard, love was an act of heroism” (Coates 61). By getting to know people and let them feel comfortable with who he is as a person, Coates allows people to open up to him and share their stories. Love is what allows us to accept, to meet and grow as people. In his son, he sees fear of white people looking at his black body and cause harm to it. Black people live in a constant state of fear that somebody with a higher power of authority at any point could just decide it is time for them to die for absolutely no reason other than the fact that their skin is darker than those in power. But you cannot have your life defined by this fear because if we let fear take over our lives, then we will always end up making what we believe is the right choice, but shut out people and opportunities to grow at the same time.

To summarize, Coates and Hill represent the two biggest views when it comes to the American dream. Hill and Cherry go for more of an analytical approach while Coates and Lorde go for more of a creative approach as one is written as a letter and another as a set of poems. Personally, I believe the dream still exists today for everyone but it is taking longer to achieve than compared to previous decades and it is less focused on making a lot of money and more on job security and maintaining a good family life.

References

1. Ward, Emma. “Five Politically-Inspired Poems by Audre Lorde: LiteraryLadiesGuide.” Literary Ladies Guide, 3 June 2017, https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/classic-women-authors-poetry/political-poetry-audre-lorde/.
2. Hill, Jason D. “An Open Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates.” Commentary, 1 Oct. 2017, https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/open-letter-ta-nehisi-coates/.
3. Cherry, Robert. “Making Freshmen Read 'Between the World and Me' Is a Mistake.” New York Post, New York Post, 23 Aug. 2016, https://nypost.com/2016/08/22/making-freshmen-read-between-the-world-and-me-is-a-mistake/.
4. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. First edition. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015.