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The poem The White House written by Claude Mckay focuses on the hardships that black citizens have to face within the American culture. Mckay’s poem presents a poetic voice demonstrating the bitterness and suppressed anger that is being exposed to society. This limits the opportunities that African Americans have against political rights as they are being shunned against their race by the caucasian community. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how exclusion and degradation cause a psychological impact on those who were second-class citizens. Three components that are shown within the play include a sense of belonging, white power, and determinism. Throughout the play, it shows how the narrator is affected by discrimination, and how he proves his relevance and desire to reach the top of the social hierarchy.
To begin with, Mckay’s poem highlights how black culture struggles to face the adversity of pleasing people within the US. Circumstances of them not being able to “fit in” often leads to negative outcomes such as not having equal rights as white people do. For example, in the first line of the poem, the narrator states “Your door is shut against my tightened face, And I am sharp as steel with discontent;” (Mckay 1-2). This indicates that the narrator is trying his best to conform to the white culture, but is being rejected for just wanting to have equal rights. This also shows that he feels a sense of helplessness because black people will always be seen as an inferior race. The sense of belonging plays a major role in one’s life as it can make a person question who they are, along with the fact some individuals find a sense of comfort in belonging to a certain social group. The second example of belonging would be when Mckay states’
“Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate Against the potent poison of your hate.” (Mckay 14). This shows that black people were victims of whites and that he uses imagery to compare poison to black people who are being killed physically, politically, and socially as well. As a result, an individual who is constantly being reminded that they are not good enough within their society
Another factor that is portrayed in the poem is the power that white individuals hold over the black community. Mckay targets the idea of how he believes that white people are known to be superior, and they often segregate blacks away from them. The power that whites have often made them feel in control and accountable for other people to behave a certain way. For example, the poem states; “A chafing savage, down the decent street; Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass” (Mckay 7-8). This quotation indicates the narrator’s anger due to America being built solely just to benefit white culture, as they believed that black people were primitive and barbaric. Mckay also uses the approach of sarcasm within this stanza to confess his hatred for the whites, as they think black people are ruining the streets within their society. Another example of power being shown within the poem is, “The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet, And passion rends my vitals as I pass” (Mckay 5-6). This illustrates the White House is a place of unjust laws that were made against black people. It is a place strictly where the whites felt safe, self freedom, and find refuge while keeping the black culture isolated. Although this allows us to understand that an individual may feel disconnected within their community it can also cause them to feel a sense of neglect from social norms, based on who they are and what their social class may be.
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