Socio-economic inequality and institutional racism are some of the issues that plague the american society today, and drive the themes of overcoming adversities and helping others in the poems “Let America Be America Again” (1935) and “Mother To Son” (1922) by Langston Hughes and in the film “The Blindside” (2009) directed by John Lee Hancock. The impact of racial profiling upon society in Hughes’s poems reflect the social context of the great depression and the early civil rights movement, where African Americans were marginalised and considered as second class citizens. In contrast to Hughes perspective, John Lee Hancock’s “The Blind side” shows the effects of that in a more modern environment, where the expectations for African Americans
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The poem Mother to Son dictates a conversation that has taken place between a mother and her son, as she tells him how hard her life is, that it "ain 't been no crystal stair". The metaphor of the crystal stair, symbolising the fictional american dream, is repeated throughout the poem. The metaphor is further expanded as the mother describes her life, a "stair", to have tacks, splinters, torn up boards and areas with no light. The mother encourages the son to keep on climbing, because she will never stop even if it gets dark, or hard. Hughes uses biblical allusion with the stair metaphor to relate it to Jacob 's Ladder, The mother is climbing this difficult journey, in hopes to reach the "Promised Land", and by telling her son to keep climbing she is trying to preserve his faith and have a strong character, when there is no carpet on the staircase. This helps the audience relate to the poem since the majority of the African American Population in Harlem is Christian and they themselves are climbing their own staircase and facing their own problems especially during the early civil rights
The poem Mother to Son dictates a conversation that has taken place between a mother and her son, as she tells him how hard her life is, that it "ain 't been no crystal stair". The metaphor of the crystal stair, symbolising the fictional american dream, is repeated throughout the poem. The metaphor is further expanded as the mother describes her life, a "stair", to have tacks, splinters, torn up boards and areas with no light. The mother encourages the son to keep on climbing, because she will never stop even if it gets dark, or hard. Hughes uses biblical allusion with the stair metaphor to relate it to Jacob 's Ladder, The mother is climbing this difficult journey, in hopes to reach the "Promised Land", and by telling her son to keep climbing she is trying to preserve his faith and have a strong character, when there is no carpet on the staircase. This helps the audience relate to the poem since the majority of the African American Population in Harlem is Christian and they themselves are climbing their own staircase and facing their own problems especially during the early civil rights