The poem I am thinking about doing for my essay is “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes. I like this poem because I think the narrator is trying to explain how he is not very much different from the other “white” students in his class. He explains that he likes a lot of the same things as other people who are of different race. At one point he tries to compare himself to his professor saying, “You are white / yet a part of me, as I am a part of you / That’s American” (30-32). I believe the narrator is trying to show that many different people share a lot of the same interests, no matter what their race might be. When this poem was written in 1951, African American were still struggling to survive socially. It had not been that long since slavery ended or even had had the right to vote. During this time, the Civil Rights Movement had not even started yet! I think Hughes did a great job on showing how African Americans weren’t as different as people may have thought. Unfortunately, people still judge & make assumptions about different races. You sure can’t judge a book by its cover.