Blog post- Bell Hooks

Today, I am going to relate one of the quotes from Bell Hooks and relate to a specific text.

The quote I have chosen is:
 For in the incorrect usage of words, in the incorrect placement of words, was a spirit of rebellion that claimed language as a site of resistance. Using English in a way that ruptured standard usage and meaning, so that white folks could often not understand black speech, made English into more than the oppressor’s language

Among many kinds of texts that are written in AAVE by African-Americans, poems, in particular, employ the AAVE language very effectively. Likewise, I have chosen a poem by Langston Hughes, an African-American poet who was born in the Jazz era of America. 

     Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair

In the poem above, there is a sense of rebellion here and there. Although the sense of rebellion is not overtly apparent in the what the text conveys, it is visible in how the language is used and how the poem is deliberately structured. 

First, there are some grammatical variations throughout the poem. On the second line of the poem, "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.", the use of 'ain't' instead of 'hasn't' is a typical style of the AAVE. Furthermore, the use of 'I'se' is extraordinary and is something that isn't used in the common English. With its meaning of 'I shall', it makes the common English speakers not from the AAVE context question the meaning of it, successfully acting as a resistance. Also, in every past participle verbs, the letter 'g' at the end is omitted, once again breaking the rules of the common English grammar. 

Second, the overall structure of this poem is not similar to those poems by non-AAVE-speaking poets that existed in the same era. To begin, it violates the basic characteristic of a poem by omitting stanzas. Unlike poems that have rhythmical patterns such as having the same number of syllables in every lines, there seems to be no rhythmical pattern in this poem, which reflects its function as a resistance effectively. However, this structure is deliberately established. The whole theme of this poem is a message from Langston's mom to her son, Langston, about how life has been hard for her and how he should live to overcome those hardships. When seen from a lens of that era, the hardship Langston mom refers to her difficulty of adapting to the American society.