Comparing the Loss of Innocence in Cullens Incident and Naylor’s Mommy

Loss of Innocence in Cullens Incident and Naylors Mommy, What Does coon Mean? Unfortunately, a question that m both African Americans have to ask in electric razorhood is Mommy, what does nigger mean?, and the answer to this question depicts the racism that still thrives in America (345). Both Gloria Naylors Mommy, What Does Nigger Mean? and Countee Cullens Incident demonstrate how a word like nigger destroys a childs innocence and initiates the child into a world of racism. though the situations provoking the racial slur differ, the word nigger has the same effect on the vernal Naylor and the child in Cullens poem. A racist indian lodge devours the white childrens innocence, and, consequently, the white children embody the concept of racism as they consume the innocence of the black children by stereotyping them as niggers. The word nigger causes the young Naylor and the child in Cullens poem to begin viewing the world in terms of black and white, and the racial epithet establi shes an invisible barrier in the midst of the black and the white worlds. Neither child ever indicates the color of the people he/she speaks of. Naylor gives her most in-depth physical description of the child that calls her nigger when she recalls that she handed the paper to a little boy in back of me (344). Naylors vague description gives the appearance that the young Naylor sees no important distinctions between the boy and herself. However, the incident that the little boy calls her nigger proves not only that the boy sees a major distinction between himself and Naylor, but also that the boy is white (344). The child in Countee Cullens poem gives a similarly color-less description of the Baltimorean boy as he/she say... ...my grandmothers living room took a word that whites used to signify worthlessness or degradation and rendered it impotent (346). In this response to the derogatory term, Naylors essay offers a tool to campaign racism and a message of hope for the innocen t minority children which Cullens Incident lacks In the process of socialization in a racist society, a child may lose innocence, but a child may also gain strength and character by rising above any racist stereotypes society applies to him/her. Works Cited Cullen, Countee. Incident. African-American books A Brief Introduction and Anthology. Ed. Al Young. New York Harper Collins, 1996. 398. Naylor, Gloria. Mommy, What Does Nigger Mean? New Worlds of Literature Writings from Americas Many Cultures, second edition. Eds. Jerome Beatty and J. Paul Hunter. New York Norton, 1994. 344-47.