Hello Class,
I'm not sure of the format of these blogs...so forgive me if this is too informal.

Hughes is a favorite among many, especially in the Academic world. I believe his work dances at the crossroads of earlier slave narratives and the beginning processes of social justice literature. Beautifully Hughes asks a lot of questions. I have decided to answer him. In specific I have responded to English B. This poem is one that I feel especially drawn to being a student, a brown student, a Mills student.

Dear L.
I hear you
Professors request responses from my heart
they say they want to hear my truth
and I wonder too
if it is as easy as it would be for them to do
I am thirty one colored born from a rape
I went to school but just for rolls sake
but for someone reason L. I hear you
you speak to me although I don't talk poetry

As I sit in the middle of an urban utopia
classrooms and dry erase boards discuss the latest problematic situations to arise out of the hoods
I grew up in
Still live in
will grow up and die in

As I try to compete with well read eighteen year old's who adjust their registers better than me

As I try to pretend this is just a paper and nothing more
a blog an assignment to examine how a brown young man writes about being a brown young man

As I try to ignore the inhumane circumstances you delicately draw attention to in your page for English B

I realize L. that you are a lot like me.

*** In his poetry Mr. Hughes does more than create art he asks us to ask ourselves questions. Hughes plays with boundaries by exploring the similarities between and the realities of the color divide.