Langston Hughes - Children's Rhymes

  Langston Hughes was a very respected poet and he was mentioned in just about every literature class I have ever taken since high school. After looking at some of his poems in class, his poem "Children's Rhymes" caught my attention the most. The reason this poem stuck out to me was the fact that it involved children. The racial discrimination of the of the early 1900's had a huge impact on all children and imprinted certain ideas in their heads at the time. "By what sends the white kids I ain't sent: I know I can't be President." this was in the minds of many young teens that they were inferior to white children and could not achieve the same dreams.

Hughes also portrays the idea that the worries of different races would also be very different from one another. "What don't bug them white kids sure bugs me: We knows everybody ain't free" This was to me the most powerful line in the poem. I think he is trying to say that the law will protect white people and black people know that there will always be discrimination, and they wont get the same treatment as white people. This is why they have more things to be worried about than white people because they don't have the same rights. I also found it very interesting that Hughes added the extra "s" to the end of "know" even though he was very educated in writing, but makes this error to possibly portray some kind connection to his community of people and culture.

However, despite how much I liked this poem, there was also a few aspects I did not. Hughes says "When I was a chile we used to play, "One-two-buckle my shoe!" and things like that. But now, Lord, listen at them little varmints!" and he goes on to state the other two quotes in this post. I was obviously not in his shoes and did not experience the same events as he did in his life, but I have experienced a high amount of racial discrimination where people have been killed, and the kids did not act the way he is portraying them to act. To me, kids are kids no matter the circumstance they are in and find ways to have fun. They don't fully understand the situation and are not singing the blues day and night about racial discrimination. This is a very powerful and sometimes truthful image, but I feel Hughes overplayed the depression of the children to create a better image for the reader.