NCTE book

I think this book has some great suggestions on how to teach the works of Hughes to students. The lesson where students identify "the folks" (24)in the essay The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain and then write down how they identify "the folk" in their lives seems it would teach character development and audience really well. The writing down characteristics of someone they perceive as "the folk" in their lives on index cards,then sharing in small groups to come up with a group descriptin of the "folk" would certainly be engaging. This would make them think and discover their peers in different ways. Many of my students move around a lot.The reasons vary but lack of money have a lot to do with it. This lesson also builds community in the classroom. This would be a great lesson for our final project but it may be too long.Instead of having them write an essay they could have a discusiion?(our class)I added an excerpt from the essay that gives a vivid description of Hughes'"folk".

But then there are the low-down folks, the so-called common element, and they are the majority--may the Lord be praised! The people who have their nip of gin on Saturday nights and are not too important to themselves or the community, or too well fed, or too learned to watch the lazy world go round. They live on Seventh Street in Washington or State Street in Chicago and they do not particularly care whether they are like white folks or anybody else. Their joy runs, bang! into ecstasy. Their religion soars to a shout. Work maybe a little today, rest a little tomorrow. Play awhile. Sing awhile. O, let's dance! These common people are not afraid of spirituals, as for a long time their more intellectual brethren were, and jazz is their child. They furnish a wealth of colorful, distinctive material for any artist because they still hold their own individuality in the face of American standardization. And perhaps these common people will give to the world its truly great Negro artist, the one who is not afraid to be himself.

I finally get it...

I think I judged too quickly when reading this book. At first I was trying to see how Sandy was a part of the story.It seemed mainly a description of the people in Sandy's life than having anything to do with Sandy himself. As Sandy became more of a player in the book I realized that all of the people in his life are what made him realize what he had to do differently. Harriet hated white people and went the "wild" route,Jimboy ran from his troubles,Anjee could never get ahead because she wasted her life chasing Jimboy. It seemed everyone around him went down the wrong path. Hager's influence saves him in the end.We realize that he will continue his education not only because of Hager's (and Tempy's) influence but because he lived through watching others make mistakes and saw what happened to them. Tempy made good choicesbut decides to negate all of her culture, where Sandy will be able to accept his culture and succeed.Hughes is writing about how blacks can succeed yet not lose their families or culture.

The NCTE Jumpoff

I think I would have prefered to read the NCTE and the collected poems of Langston Hughes before Not Without Laughter, because I did not have the background to fully get into a plotless story about another time and a region of the country which I am not to steeped in academically. Mardi Gras and Katrina I get, but I just needed a plot, I needed an ending, the begining was amazing, and parts were great but as a whole I was torn. The first part of the NCTE guide which is written by a fan of Hughes, is very insightful as far as telling us how the works of Hughes can inspire our students to BE ALL THEY CAN BE. I wanted to learn about Hughes and get exposure to his work, however, Not Without Laughter was not the text I thought it would be. That's what happens when we have expectations I guess. The NCTE book is very insightful and does put the pieces together as far as how this is pertinant to teaching. Though I question the youth of today, in Buffalo, being able to grasp the time period represented, the historical references, the dialect, and lack of plot. I don't know if we are supposed to just read the section on teaching Not wihtout laughter but I started from the begining and I find I like learning about Hughes and Hughes' poetry much, much more than Not Withouth Laughter.

just made a connection

Interestingly if you read Hughes poetry after Not Without Laughter, or his poetry first, the story comes more fully to life. For example, Chapter 20 was a lackluster chapter about work and order of authority, but it is significant in that it shows the chain of command, the inability to get noticed for the work you do, and the criminal activities of the proletariat bosses. Sandy is a Brass Spitton cleaner at the hotel and I came across this poem after finishing the book and went back and read it. Do you think that this poem correlates well with the chapter, does it add anything to the chapter or take away. Am I just completely way off with my angle?
Brass Spittoons
by Langston Hughes
Clean the spittoons, boy.
Detroit,
Chicago,
Atlantic City,
Palm Beach.
Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a day.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars
Buy shoes for the baby.
House rent to pay.
Gin on Saturday,
Church on Sunday.
My God!
Babies and gin and church
And women and Sunday
All mixed with dimes and
Dollars and clean spittoons
And house rent to pay.
Hey, boy!
A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord.
Bright polished brass like the cymbals
Of King David’s dancers,
Like the wine cups of Solomon.
Hey, boy!
A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord.
A clean bright spittoon all newly polished—
At least I can offer that.
Com’mere, boy!

Slavery talk and it's relation to the N-Bomb

Yo, this is how I see it. For reals, look at this passage and thinks to yoself bout how much sense this makes.
"'Yes'm, I'd like it, but we only had coffee at home."
"'You needn't say 'yes'm' in this house. We are not used to slavery talk here. If you like milk, I'll get it for you..."
Think about oppression and the continuation of the language of the oppressed. Granted, I codeswitch when it is necessary, after all, it is a show of respect and gains me access to other avenues of society. However, I do so knowing that I am adding to the endurance of an oppressive tool. The ability to speak street, slang, Ebonics, what ever you call it, enables me to enter communities that would otherwise be off limits. I gain an acceptance that can be compared to entering a Spanish speaking country with a good grasp of Spanish and a decent Spanish accent. Suddenly, by showing respect for the language intricacies of another I build a bridge for communication. However, that bridge is a one way bridge, it has yet to lead to someone else code-switching to meet my mark or my dominant discourse. Then again, I am not a classroom facilitator yet. Anyway, back to the quote, this was an attempt by an elder to break the youth of the oppressive language of slavery, a language that draws lines and enhances difference in society at large. I don't know if it is best to speak American English, I mean we all have different accents and variations, I think people from Texas sound like giraffes, I really like proper English or British English, but either way if we all spoke more alike we would have one less differnce. The elder telling the child to not speak slave talk, was tired of the slave days, and wanted to integrate. Slave language was forced, slaves brought from Africa did not speak English. They were forced to learn words quick without the ability to write.
My ramble is over
Thanks for reading if you did.
Rob

Hope

Chapter 21, gives us insight into the sort of bohemian idea of racial mixing. The place called "Bottoms" outside of town was a place where "people of all colors came together for the sake of joy..." (p. 217). This chapter gets at the heart of the propaganda against mixing of races and it is streamed in from the churches. I love the metaphor that Hughes uses in this chapter:
"To those who lived on the other side of the railroad and never realized the utter stupidity of the word "sin," the Bottoms was vile and wicked. But to the girls who lived there, and the boys who pimped and fought and sold licker there, "sin" was a silly word that did not enter their heads. They never looked at life through the spectacles of Sunday School. The glasses good people wore wouldn't have fitted their eyes, for they hung no curtain of words between themselves and reality. The them, things were--what they were."
This quote will stick with me and my teaching. I love getting at the truth of the vale, not just church, democracy, freedom, family, trust, teaching, good & bad, evil, etc. There is a myriad of topics which require us to inquire further into our understanding of our opinions. One person's truth is another's lie. Also, I like calling liquor, "licker" it works, really it does. I am not so sure that with as much as I have struggled with this book, that I would teach it in its entirety.

Just for ... giggles

"Almost Always she was with sporty-looking fellows who wore derbies and had gold teeth" (p. 212). Just wanted to share the image that pops into my mind when I think of the sexy factor of gold teeth. Plus, his shirts match the two posts below giving him that sporty feel. And he may even be wearing a derbie on his head.

hum... final thoughts...

Aight, I have been finished with the book and pondering over the deeper meaning (over coffee at spot of course because that is where all the intellects hang out and I obviously belong there, especially with my nose ring) and I remembered that I taught Hughes' Freedom Plow with my students, which really brings home the point that this country started off horrible. Every major figure from back in the days was a sort of hypocrite, a liar, but that it's up to us TODAY to change it. We need to "Keep your hand on the plow! Hold on" so that in the future people won't have to know hate based on race. So that the sins of the past can go away. And I feel like that's the same message at the end of the book. Sandy realizes that his way to make sense in the world, between the two extremes that he has faced living with Tempy and living with Hagar and then his mother, don't really suit him. He doesn't want to be poor but proud, but he doesn't want to be rich but ashamed, Sandy seems to want to be successful but also proud of his heritage. I think he will find it through education WHICH HE DOESN'T GIVE UP! and that makes me so happy. As an educator it's is exhilarating (i don't think i've ever used that word before!) to see a child that dedicated to his education from such an early age and in the face of such hardship. Overall I think that the final message is that you can't JUST be a Tempy, or JUST be a Hagar, there needs to be a happy medium, and the best route for that is through education. :)

TEMPY!

As the book progresses and Sandy is forced to live with Tempy after Hagar dies, the black/white dynamic changes. It is so interesting how Tempy makes sense of race compared to Harriet. There still seems to be the same dislike of whites undertone, but instead of just hating the opposite race, as Harriet does, Tempy tries to prove them wrong. She takes such an interesting stance on race, because she looks down on African American's "if Negroes wanted any, the quicker they learned to be like the whites, the better. Stop being lazy, stop singing all the time, stop attending revivals and learn to get the dollar - because money buys everything, even the respect of white people" 238-239. Tempy seems almost to be ashamed of her race, and certainly her family. She has a distinct idea on what success means and how one (specifically an African American) goes about doing this. I couldn't believe how closely she was describing her family, but saying that everything they did was wrong. Harriet seems to just hate white people, but does not let that or them affect the way she lives her life, Tempy yearns for the respect of white people but can't quite get that either.
Another quote that just shook me was what her mentor said to her "You're so smart and such a good, clean, quick little worker, Tempy, that it's too bad you aren't white" (237). What I found to be so ironic about this passage is that this is said by a woman who is fighting for equality, yet she can't see that she should be fighting for the rights of ALL women, not just white. This woman knows what it feels like to be told no about something simply because of gender, which one cannot control and doesn't affect one's mind. In my head she said this so sincerely and with great intentions, yet it's so nasty. It is something that I think really affected Tempy, which might be way she is ashamed/shuns what it means to be African American (all the way down to the stereotypes).

"He just goes on like he wsa white" (171)

OK i can't quite get off this black/white thing yet. Only because I find it so interesting how one is defined by NOT being the other. and in Chapter XV One by One, we really get to know a little boy named Buster, who looks white. Now, this isn't too much of a shock to me, I was like "ok la la la" as I read (literally!) but what really shocked me was this:
"I have the hardest time keeping that boy colored! He goes on just like he was white. Do you know what he did last week? Cut all the blossoms off my geranium plants here in the house, took them to school, and gave them to Dorothy Marlow, in his grade. And you know who Dorothy is, don't you? Senator Marlow's daughter!..." I said "Buster, if you ever cut my flowers to carry to any little girl again, I'll punish you severely, but if you cut them to carry to a little white girls, I don't know what I'll do with you....Don't you know they hang colored boys for thinks like that?" (170-171)
I was shocked at the first part, that he wasn't black enough for his mother, and that she had to show him to be black, but then that she was appalled that the flowers were for a white girl. I'm sure part of that was the urge to protect him, because a black man dating a white girl didn't work back then, but part of me is concerned that it might make him whiter. Perhaps she is worried because for the most part, if a child (like Tempy) turned white, then they were lost to their old family. Perhaps if Buster ends up with a white girl then he won't be there to help his mother... hum... just like how Tempy behaves white and doesn't help out her family.... hum ...

It boggles my mind that there are degrees of being a race too "oh he's not black miss" is something that i hear all the time from the students "he hangs out with too many white kids and he thinks he's all that but he's not! if he hung around some black people they would put him in his place" I just find it so interesting that the child this student was talking about isn't considered black enough, because of the company he keeps. Just like Buster isn't black enough, though he does hang around Sandy...

RACE IS WEIRD!

"She just put us in back because we're niggers" (Hughes, p. 132).

All this talk of "nigger" in this chapter (XII, School) is really making me thing of the poets featured on the teaching literature blog. The use of the word nigger is appauling to me, now, after really breaking down the word the way in which each poet did (poetically :)). Although I previously used the term in a careless endearing sense, under certain social cercumstances, I have halted that practice. i thought that because I grew up in an all black neighborhood that I was entitled by entitlement to use the word. Likewise, I have been told by some that I can use the word with them, from time to time the term is used towards me in an endearing sense. It is a careless symbol of acceptance, I know prefer the terms BROTHER or SISTER on any day, which Hughes uses in later chapters and is a custom in the South. Nigger, symbolizes oppression, enslavement, and marginalization. Here we have the term used to describe the grandmother's kids as "a lazy nigger." This is in a sense taking ownership of the term, but you can also see how the term is associated with negative things like being lazy or being seated in the back of the classroom. I think this chapter could be very effectively used to read on its own, the first day of class in a mixed school. I was observing a class at McKinley High School last week and I noticed that even within the classroom the students were obviously segregated by race and gender. I was not surprised but I would want to facilitate the blending of these differences, a move towards acceptance. This chapter can be a discussion starter, similiar to the ones Gaughan used in chapter 7, for his female-male syllabus. I would have my students generate dialogues with students that may be sitting on the other side of the room. Just an idea.

The black/white thingy

O M G!
I was reading along in this book on a delightful snow day, and I began to think about this paradigm of white and black. Because there really is so much racial tension in this book, and I began to think about how if you aren't white, you serve white or you act white. There seems to be no existence of purely black-ness. Except in the two characters who leave, Harriet and Jimboy. Harriet hates white people, and she refuses to work for them so she leaves, to find herself? to get away from serving white people? to just be comfortable in being black? She does leave with white people from the carnival so that might not entirely work for this theory. But what really made me think about this is in the chapter about Christmas, we meet Tempy (for the first time?) and she is described when she leaves as: "When she had gone, everybody felt relieved - as though a white person had left the house" (159). And she is described as having so much money and she buys Sandy this beautiful book, which he refuses to accept. But Tempy is not a part of thier lives, she is far away and considered to be "high society." But I just found it sooo interesting how she was compared to a white person, and that it caused tension in the house........ so I think as I continue to read I'm going to try and pay close attention to how being black is defined by not being white and visa versa............

a lil' extra info.......

Much of Not Without Laughter is semi-autobiographical. Hughes admitted that he based Stanton, and many of the people and places in it, on his experiences in Lawrence. There are differences between Hughes' life and Sandy's, however. As Hughes explained in his first autobiography, The Big Sea:

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. Originally published in Crisis, June 1921. Reprinted in The Weary Blues, 1926.

"I wanted to write about a typical Negro family in the Middle West, about people like those I had known in Kansas. But mine was not a typical Negro family. My grandmother never took in washing or worked in service or went much to church. She had lived in Oberlin and spoke perfect English, without a trace of dialect. She looked like an Indian. My mother was a newspaper woman and a stenographer then. My father lived in Mexico City. My granduncle had been a congressman. And there were heroic memories of John Brown's raid and the underground railroad in the family storehouse."

"But I thought maybe I had been a typical Negro boy. I grew up with the other Negro children of Lawrence, sons and daughters of family friends. I had an uncle of sorts who ran a barber shop in Kansas City. And later I had a stepfather who was a wanderer. We were poor--but different. For purposes of the novel, however, I created around myself what seemed to me a family more typical of Negro life in Kansas than my own had been. I gave myself aunts that I didn't have, modeled after other children's aunts whom I had known. But I put in a real cyclone that had blown my grandmother's porch away. And I added dances and songs I remembered. I brought the boy to Chicago in his teens, as I had come to Chicago--but I did not leave behind a well-fixed aunt whose husband was a mail clerk."\

http://www.continuinged.ku.edu/hughes/files_city/laughter.html

I was doing some research about the book, just because we had all had some hard time figuring out the book. I thought this was a little interesting and that perhaps it might help us with the book. I also discovered that this was his first piece of prose, so perhaps he was having a hard time negotiating between being a poet and an author of prose.......... hum.........

Carnival, bye bye harriet!

What I found to be so interesting in Carnival was that Sandy got a rusty nail in his foot and to remedy that Hagar put fat meat on it! I have been conscious all along at the time period in this book, but never so much as this home remedy. I thought it was almost funny that they thought fat meat would draw the infection out.
Another really interesting thing was how the revival was the same week as the carnival. It is so interesting how the carnival, which normally means wickedness and bad behavior, took place during the revival, which is very pious and a reaching out to God and religion. I have to admit that I'm not too sure why the two took place at the same time. It did a great job at showing how Harriet is torn between the two. She wants to be young and have fun, aka the carnival, but her mother demands her to be religious, because it is what Hagar wants.
In the end Harriet chooses to go with the wicked, because she leaves her home and goes with the carnival. I can understand a teenagers urge to get away from her parents (after all isn't that what college is about?! sure was for me!) but I can't believe that she would just go like that! and leave her family behind. It really makes me wonder what sort of life she can make for herself traveling around the country considering her own biases and prejudices.

Words Like Freedom--By Langston Hughes

This project was created for a Digital Video (LAI 536) class at the University at Buffalo. Most participants were not harmed in the making of this video.




Words Like Freedom

There are words like Freedom
Sweet and wonderful to say.
On my heart strings freedom sings
All day everyday.

There are words like Liberty
That almost make me cry.
If you had known what I know
You would know why.

-Langston Hughes (from p. 38 of Poetry For Young People: Langston Hughes)

The Five Senses

Chapter VII, p. 85 Hughes writes: "You could smelll fiah, an' you could see it red, an' taste de smoke, an' feel it stingin' yo' eyes." He captures all five senses in one sentence. The beauty of it does not end there. He also captures the southern dialect with it's rythmic poectic quality. At times we see poets use omissions of letters like the "d" in and or the "g" in Stinging. It works both as a dialect and an art. This sentense transports me to many different places that I have experienced such a sensory max, however, it effectively brings me to the place that Hughes is describing as well.

Introduction to life through JAZZ

Chapter VIII is titled Dance, and could be seen as an overarching metaphor for the way you listen to JAZZ or RAG music. It is a full body experience, you must use all of your senses, feeling the vibrations, touching the lyrics, tasting the sweat on your lips, hearing the emotions, and seeing the passion of the performers. Hughes brings the reader right into the night club with Harriet on a steamy August night. What stands out to me is the way in which he does not rely on the reader’s knowledge of JAZZ or music in general. He eloquently wraps every last detail of sensation into this rhythmical chapter. His art is in delivering the experience through nothing but words, however, with an ability that carves through your senses like a sculptor carves through stone. I was sweating while reading this chapter, there was no music playing, but you could feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it, and most certainly see it through his keen observations. How could this be an author looking back? I would think that he must have been in a club while writing this vignette. I would have needed a DV camera to capture half as much as Hughes manages, not only to capture, but to deliver at a level that does not require prior knowledge of JAZZ. The JAZZ here is a fresh JAZZ, just off the train from New Orleans. Hughes writes, “A coalblack lad from New Orleans who had brought with him an exaggerated rag-time which he called jazz” (p. 105). He describes the music they are playing as capable of “playing the heart out of loneliness” which is the opposite of what the blues do for a listener. Well, I actually believe the blues brings company to your loneliness which is not quite the opposite. The music described includes excerpts of the lyrics like:

You gonna wake up some mawnin’
An’ turn yo’ smilin’ face.
Wake up some early mawnin’,
Says turn yo’ smiliin’ face,
Look at yo’ sweetie’s pillow—
An’ find an’ empty place! (p. 105)

The lyrics show the sadness being described, but it is like a roller coaster of emotions, ever so tightly tied to the musicians and the audience. The band members call out emotions and flare the tempo and pound the rhythm, beating into the audience and each other the heartbeat of life. He describes the instruments as such, “the piano was the water flowing, and the high, thin chords of the banjo were the mountains floating in the clouds. But in the sultry tones, alone and always, the brass cornet spoke harshly about he earth” (p. 96). Even the juxtaposition of instruments is a representation of the myriad of emotions depicted in JAZZ and experienced in life. JAZZ is a metaphor for life. I truly feel after reading this chapter that I have a deeper understanding of JAZZ music as a whole.