The Theme of Acceptance of Diversity in "Nikki Rosa" by Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Rosa is poem about someone’s (Nikki Giovanni) childhood being poor but making the best of it and relying on family to be happy regardless of their circumstances, although colour plays a major role growing up in this black suburbs of Cincinnati Ohio. The poem is depicting the diversity and the differences of people seen through the eyes of this child. . . in Nikki-Rosa’s context black people. To understand someone's diversity means that you have to accept their culture and their way of living, which in today's society can be quite difficult since we live in a world where it appears like everyone is only concern with their issues and that only their point of view matters.

The works analyzed in “Nikki Rosa” according to my judgement are the emotions that people convey rather than the true reality, colour in today's society and the understanding of other people's’ culture. Ultimately discussing this poem shows how some people may view and interpret others, especially when they are from a different background. From the name of the poem “ Nikki Rosa” we may get the impression that this story is about a white person or family, however as we read and move throughout the story we realize that this poem is in fact a story about a black family from a poor city either in the deep south of america or make the assumption that it's possibly a poor area from multiple adjectives and the word choices such as “black love, hard life and no Wright 2inside toilet” some word choices that could have been used to describe a person's life if they grew up in the black slavery times. The poem talks about how the emotions that other groups of people may convey towards another group looking from the outside, prejudging rather than getting to know an individual to understand how their childhood really was and how much of an impact growing up in that type of environment could have molded them into the person that they will eventually become. The reason we get this impression is when the author says “ they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they’ll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy (Giovanni,Line 25). Besides prejudging someone's emotions and life, this story also Illustrates how in today's society many people are quick to assume things and misinterpret people by their colour rather than truly understanding their background and their values.

The author explores this by juxtaposing throughout the poem by pointing out the comparison of even though family arguments were present as a result of their dad’s drinking, family love was extremely important in their family. In fact his references throughout the poems appears as though he is speaking for all black families as well. Giovanni talks about his sister as well stating that birthdays and christmases were important family times even though at times there were some fighting within the home those times meant a lot to them although others looking from the outside may think differently. Another way Giovanni illustrated the misunderstanding that people will most likely point out, is in the comparison of their “childhood being rough and a drag” and not Wright 3mention “how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself” (Giovanni Line6). Still to this day stereotypes are made to people from the colour of their skin, the way they are dress and the way a person talks; for example, people will notice poverty in a certain group of people and remain with that same attitude everytime they would encounter someone of a particular group. As humans we need to understand that we are not and cannot be the same… The metaphor “Black Love is Black Wealth” is Giovanni meaning that in many black communities love and family unity is the most important thing in a child life and that this time is portrayed as something they valued much more than wealth. In the poem’s context the narrator is speaking in what a white person would critic and judge a black person’s life. Once again will not see the support of the family, “but only that everybody is together and you and your sister have happy birthdays and very good christmases. ”(Giovanni Line 22,23)

To conclude, we live in a world where airplanes makes it easy to go from one place to another and so we are “bound” to meet people of different backgrounds, colour and cultures. Therefore acceptance of diversity and difference should be natural to each person in the world. We need to learn to tolerate, accept and not prejudge people regardless of their ways of living. We need to look at nature and see the example in the as the fall season how trees can have many different colour leaves and differences and still a part of the world. This cycle of the leaves falling and dying new ones will appear again in different shapes, forms and colours.