On Being Brought from Africa to America
I thought it was interesting that she used the word "refined" in the end of this poem. The definition of the word "refine" is impurities or unwanted elements having been removed by processing. It sounds as if she is mad at white people for the way they look down on black people, due to their being slavery and her being enslaved at the time, but then on the other hand, she is looking down on her own self for being black.
In her bio it states that "Although some African-American scholars have disparaged Wheatley for appearing to endorse a white Christian world view, others have argued that her poetry has a strong Afrocentric and feminist subtext." However, in this poem I feel that she is kind of ashamed of the fact that she is black because she was taught in the society she grew up in that this had a negative connotation that belonged with it. And she continues to use the word "angelic train" referring to white people and that black people will be just as great as the white people one day. For being a black female writer, this does seem weird reading that as one of her pieces, unless it is meant to be sarcastic and I am interpreting it wrong.
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