Jericho Brown is an African American poet born in 1976. Jericho Brown is also from Shreveport, Louisiana, which is in the south of the United States, so it’s safe to say that Brown has more than likely experienced racism. In Brown’s poem “The Tradition”, he reflects on the topic of police brutality against African American males. Throughout the poem Brown uses a series of words and phrases such as “we”, “our”, “us”, “Men like me”, and “my brothers” which offer a sense of inclusiveness; I too experienced this, I too did this, directly revealing the poet’s identity. It’s as though Jericho Brown is the speaker. With using these particular phrases Brown expounds on tribulations African Americans faced from 1619 to present day. It’s clearly shown …show more content…
Delphinium, he makes a point to italicize these names. The names of these flowers serve more relevance later in the poem. In line one, Brown goes on to say, “We thought / Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt”. Here, Brown is talking about slavery, which is something Brown’s ancestors horrifically experienced during the 17th through the 19th century. The tone of this short line is very sorrowful, disappointed, and distraught. Further explaining this lines meaning, Brown is saying that during and due to slavery, African Americans practically built this country by their bare hands with all of their hard work and hard labor. Them actually doing all the physical work, they thought they had planted the seeds that would at least grant them something, whether it be land or a place in society. We planted these beautiful, colorful, meaningful flowers for our future generations to grow and blossom. Could it be planting ourselves up for …show more content…
Star Gazer. Foxglove. This could be interpreted it as the Tuskegee Experiment in 1932. The Tuskegee Experiment was an experiment with the goal of finding a cure for the syphilis disease. This experiment was conducted by the Public Health Service and involved 600 African American males (399 men with syphilis and 201 who did not have the disease). For participating, the men were promised burial insurance. This experiment represented optimism for African Americans, kind of like a stargazer. A stargazer is a pink and white flower that symbolizes optimism, reaching your goals even though they may seem far fetched. Unfortunately, the men weren't properly informed of the true intentions of the experiment; they never had the opportunity to give their consent, and the experiment was only supposed to last six months, but ended up lasting for forty years. The African American, male participants grew incredibly ill and many died, and in 1947, when penicillin became the primary cure for syphilis, the participants oddly still weren't offered it. The Tuskegee Experiment has representation in the foxglove flower. The foxglove flower “has both positive and negative connotations, which is understandable as they can both cure and kill. Some believe that this flower represents insincerity” (http://flowerinfo.org. “Foxglove Flowers). The scientists involved in the Tuskegee Experiment