The City of Whites

      As I was looking for sonnets i my English book I found one that was not about love or beauty at all, it was about hate, and despair. "The White City" by Claude McKay, made me think about how in the late 1800's- early 1900's was discriminatory towards races other than whites. This poem tells readers about the hate in the city, and how that a white mans hell was like heaven to them. It is ironically written as a sonnet because of its hate, which makes it more interesting. This poem may be about something completely different, but this is my interpretation: It is about an African America person who is living in the city, and is  hating how the discrimination throughout the city is segregating the blacks and the whites, and is making it seem like heaven for one is hell for another, which is not right at all. There was imagery in this poem that made me think of a run down street that many were forced to live in, but it was normal for them, and many were just happy to be in the north. It also made me think of new technology arriving, and how the city was just full of hate, and despair. Another concept that the poem gave me was of the underground railroad, even tough it was not written around the time of the civil war, it made me think of a time before the civil war where the underground railroad was active, and it brought families up to the north to live in run down towns with multiple other families. Anyways here is the poem so that you can make your own assumption. 

The White City
By: Claude McKay

I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.

Deep in the secret chambers of my heart

I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch

I bear it nobly as I live my part.

My being would be skeleton, a shell,

If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,

And makes my heaven in the white world's hell,

Did not forever feed me vital blood.

I see the mighty city through a mist--

The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,

The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed,

The fortressed port through which the great ships pass,

The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,

Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.