Discrimination In Countee Cullen's Incident

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger’” (Cullen 5-8).

Discrimination between two young boys of different races is shown in this quote. After arriving in Baltimore, the speaker saw a boy around his age and was excited to try and make a new friend. He even smiled in an attempt to befriend the boy. Instead, he was judged by the color of his skin right away. The speaker then discloses the large impact this instance of prejudice had on him:

“I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

That's all that I remember” (Cullen 9-12).

These four lines show that this experience stuck with the poem’s narrator. Without even knowing him, a young boy committed a startling display of discrimination towards the speaker and effected him to the point where that incident was all the speaker could remember about a seven month trip ("An Analysis of Countee Cullen’s ‘Incident’”). “Incident” relates to Martin Luther King Jr. Day in that it showcases the prejudice and hate Dr. King fought against. Cullen’s poem established how deep of an impact racism can have on a person. Unfair treatment African Americans endured

Eugenia Phelan, nicknamed “Skeeter,” is a single, recently graduated, and defiant young woman who does not fit in with the Southern ladies she grew up with. This group of wealthy, married women is led by Miss Hilly, a deeply prejudiced woman pushing for a bill requiring white families to have a separate restroom in their homes for the African American help. After making friends with her friend’s maid, Aibileen Clark, Skeeter becomes repulsed by the way her friends behave towards their help. She then makes plans to write a book depicting the everyday struggles of African American maids working for white families by interviewing her friends’ maids.