Questions for Wednesday

Sorry I didn't get these to you guys sooner. I will also print out copies so you don't need to.

1. In “Walls: A Journey to Auburn” and “The School,” Kenneth A. McClane compares both the Auburn prison and his experience at the Collegiate school to hell. What do you think of this comparison? Also, what do you make of McClane’s experience at Auburn? He describes his fear of the prison and its occupants, yet when he speaks with the men he realizes they are just like you and me.
2. In “The School,” McClane describes the Brearly dinner that he was ultimately dreading, but upon going had a good time. Afterwards, he feels that he would have probably had an even better time had he “not come in there wearing the wariness of color” (59). What do you think about McClane’s statement in relation to W.E.B DuBois’s theory of the double consciousness? Does this change your view about double consciousness and whether it is a gift or burden?
3. June Jordan speaks about the need for affirmative action in “An Angry Black Woman on the Subject of the Angry White Man”: “And neither the Emancipation Proclamation nor one constitutional amendment after another one nor one civil rights legislation after another could bring about a yielding of the followers of that gospel to the beauty of our human face. Justice don’t mean nothin’ to a hateful heart! And so we needed affirmative action” (101). What are your thoughts about Jordan’s statement? Do you agree?
4. Looking at Langston Hughes’s “A Negro Speaks of Rivers,” what are your thoughts on McClane’s “To Hear the River”? How are they similar and different? Do the poems share the same metaphorical use of the river?
5. Compare and contrast Jordan’s “I Must Become A Menace To my Enemies” and Brown’s “Transfer.” What themes do these poems share? Looking at the two poems, it is obvious that much has happened historically between the times the two poems were published? What does this say about the progress of African Americans?