Black And White Community In Maya Angelou's Stamps

In Stamps, Angelou stated that the worlds of the black and white community are so separated from each other, a metaphorical curtain is pulled down between the black community towards all things white. Unable to get anything if the color is white because the white people are so prejudiced against them. “ A light shade had been pulled down between the Black community and all things white, but one could see through it enough to develop a fear-admiration-contempt for the white ‘things’.....”(47). Angelou wants the reader to see the oppression and discrimination the Black community has been through because of the color of their skin, or because they were once slaves. To the reader, the White community is but a mystery, only knowing what happens …show more content…
Louis, Missouri that ended in tragedy, rape, that left her refusing to speak for many years. Angelou and her brother are sent to St. Louis to meet and stay with their mother for about a year. During this time, she meets her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, who is described as a big brown bear, due to him not doing anything. He becomes a questionable father figure for the author due to his touchy behavior. Yet because Angelou enjoyed this affection, he decided to do it again, raping her in the process. Overtime, her brother finds out and tells their grandmother, putting Mr. Freeman on trial. After the court, Mr. Freeman was killed by Angelou’s over-protective uncles which deeply traumatized her. “Just my breath, carrying my words out, might poison people and they’d curl up and die like the black fat slugs only pretended. I had to stop talking.” (85). Angelou’s point in saying this is that she thought that Mr. Freeman’s death was her fault because she told Bailey, her brother. Thinking that whatever she would say, kills people. Because of this, she takes a vow of silence for five years in order to prevent blood being spilled because of her words. Yet even though this tragedy happened in her life, she was still able to move forward. A year after the events of St. Louis, When Angelou returns to Stamps, she is silent and doesn’t do any of the activities she used to enjoy before she was raped. Yet …show more content…
In the summer, Angelou visits her father in San Diego. While she is there, she meets his girlfriend, Dolores, a young woman who soon becomes jealous of Angelou. One day, her father decided for all of them to go to Mexico to visit some of his old friends. When they arrive, a celebration is thrown that lasts all night. Yet during this, Maya couldn’t find her father and begins to think that he left her behind to fend for herself from the Mexicans. “Did he care what happened to me?..there was no stopping them. I was to die, after all, in a Mexican dirt yard.”(229). Angelou explains that she was scared of the Mexicans, for unknown reasons. Even though they were kind to her and her father, she shouldn’t have a reason to be scared of them. This situation may symbolize that Angelou shows how stereotypical humans are. When people are in a different country and see people there, those people begin to think that they are murderers or liars. And that they were going to kill them if they come to this country. Yet overtime, this changes when Angelou see her father and Dolores return. Both intoxicated, she attempts to drive them back to California, yet fails when she crashes into a car. In this moment, she gets scared and tries to call the police but then her father wakes up and he soon handles everything. “Dad shook hands with all the men, patted the children and smiled