{"id":3665,"date":"2020-10-23T14:39:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T18:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/?p=3665"},"modified":"2020-10-23T14:39:53","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T18:39:53","slug":"charley-blount-blog-post-10-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/2020\/10\/23\/charley-blount-blog-post-10-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Charley Blount Blog Post 10\/26"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Throughout history, our country has been advertised as a beacon of liberty and freedom. In reality, those ideals are nothing more than dreams for Many Americans. Langston Hughes uses his poems to discuss the racial and economic inequities that persist in America, despite the encouraging rhetoric that is promulgated by white, wealthy America. In his poem, \u201cLet America Be America Again, Hughes acknowledges disparities in American prosperity, saying, \u201cI am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery\u2019s scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek\u2014 And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak\u201d (Hughes). Hughes first identifies the large swaths of the population that face oppression every day, then criticizes the capitalist structure of our American economy that stimulates class divisions that often fall along racial lines. In a much more individual sense, Langston is describing \u201cthe man who never got ahead\u201d because of financial restrictions or racial discrimination.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hughes\u2019 criticism of the status quo is only part of \u201cLet America Be America Again.\u201d In the latter half of the poem, Hughes challenges the United States to live up to the lofty ideals that the founders set for the nation. Hughes says, \u201cO, let America be America again\u2014The land that never has been yet\u2014And yet must be\u2014the land where <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">every<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> man is free\u201d (Hughes). Hughes argued that the United States could not continue to hide behind the guise of universal opportunity and equality. According to Hughes, in order to achieve this vision, the United States must rebuild itself rather than attempting to work within the constraints of a broken system manufactured to perpetuate discrimination and economic inequities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Throughout history, our country has been advertised as a beacon of liberty and freedom. In reality, those ideals are nothing more than dreams for Many&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/2020\/10\/23\/charley-blount-blog-post-10-26\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Charley Blount Blog Post 10\/26<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4897,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4897"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3666,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3665\/revisions\/3666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}