The African American Experience: A Burden To Bear

The African American experience is a very commonly discussed topic in society.

However, as easy as it is to talk and discuss it, it is much harder to live through it. During the

Harlem Renaissance-when African Americans began to show their pride to be black-many

authors wrote about this experience and how they bore it. Zora Neale Hurston and Langston

Hughes portray the African American experience as a constant burden to bear- carried only by

persevering through tough times with pride for oneself; Coates explains, in "Between the World

and Me", that this burden is still being carried today.

What happens to a dream deferred? This is the question Langston Hughes asks in one

of his most famous poems, Harlem. The dream in question is the idea that one day African

Americans will be treated the same way as any other American. He calls it deferred because it

seems to him that this dream has died, or dried up like a raisin in the sun. However, although

not noticeable through all of the imagery of a rotten object, Hughes conveys a sense of pride

through this poem. By leaving the poem with Or does it explode, he is revealing that the way

to march through hardship is by pride. He is proud to be African American, and he wants this

pride to burst out after being contained for so many years and shine over everyone. He does a

good job of illustrating how this pride has been contained for a long time in I, Too. When other

people treat him poorly due to his race, he uses that pride to move forward And grow strong

until eventually the dream bursts into the open and Theyll see how beautiful I am, And be

ashamed.

Zora Neale Hurston makes the same point, but in the opposite way. In How It Feels To Be

Colored Me, instead of explicitly stating that she is proud to be black, she explains that she is not

ashamed to be black, thus implying her pride. This is what she means by I am not tragically
colored. She says that to her, being black is not a bad thing. She isnt sad about it because she

says, I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife. This means that she is preparing herself to

make the best out of the situation. The world is her oyster, and she is ready to find her pearl, and

being black wont change that. Although, according to her, people still tried to tell her differently.

She says that she doesnt want to look back on slavery and weep over it because it is sixty years

in the past. To her, there is no point in grieving over something you cant change. She even says

that she is off to a flying start, meaning that she is doing well. She doesnt need to halt in the

stretch and break her stride only to cry about the past. She prefers to look ahead to the future

and make the best of it.

Even though much has changed since the 1930s when Hurston and Hughes wrote texts,

not much about the African American has changed. In Between The World And Me, Coates points

out that the burden is still being carried. According to him, there is a misconception that race

issues happen because of racism, to which he replies, But race is the child of racism, not the

father. He explains that racism and race issues only exist because humans have defined different

colors of skin as races. The result of these differences define the conditions that make the African

American experience similar to what it was during the Harlem Renaissance. Coates has accepted

this, and tells his son that he must find some way to live within all of it.

Clearly, the African American experience has not much changed since the Harlem

Renaissance. As described by Hurston and Hughes, it is not only an experience but a burden in

the society that they lived. They pushed through it by means of being proud of who you are.

Coates connects all of this together with the modern world and how there is still a burden to be

carried today.