Hokum Readings 11/5

           I enjoyed today's readings from Hokum a little more than the previous stories. The first reading was "Adventure" by Langston Hughes. This short passage had similar content compared to most of the stories in Hokum. They all seem to focus on the oppression against African Americans in the United States. Most of this oppression comes from white people. In this reading, I found the sarcastic tone throughout interesting. The ideas of a sight seeing tour with whites and blacks in Alabama was fairly amusing. However, this reading didn't make me laugh, as with most of the Hokum readings. I don't think most of these stories are aiming to provide a belly aching laugh. Instead, they poke fun at all the injustices African Americans faced at the time by trying to show how outrageous those injustices were.
           The next reading was "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara. I was actually able to relate to this story a little because of the toy store. When the kids started looking at the unbelievably priced things in New York, I immediately knew where they were because of my job this past summer. I worked for West Corporation as a customer service specialist for their client, Toys R Us.com. During my training process, I learned that Toys R Us actually owns FAO Schwarz. Whenever I would get an FAO Schwarz call my eyes would light up hoping for a celebrity or some CEO to call in and order the 16 foot tall giraffe we sold for $7,999. This never happened, but I do remember one guy called in and had me order three toy trucks for him, with overnight shipping for a final bill around $300.00. For his billing address, he told me the 47th floor of a building on Madison Avenue; and for the shipping address, his summer home in Nantucket. I'm definitely not in the same situation as the kids in the story, but it's crazy to think about how much money some people have earned. Now, back to the story. The Lesson seems to be another amusing story that has a certain message but no major laughs. The lesson Miss Moore is trying to teach is kind of telling wit this quote: "Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven (197)." On the surface, it appears Miss Moore is showing the kids major differences between people in America. Along with this message, I thought "The Lesson" was pretty amusing. The narrator is a young girl who tells the story in a humorous tone. The way she describes all the mischief with vulgar language is entertaining. It never really made me laugh, but it made this story easy to read.
           The last reading was "Dark Prophecy: I sing of Shine." I'm just a biology major so I wasn't exactly sure the specific type of style, but I'll call this reading a poem. This poem uses a lot more vulgar language. It tells the story of an African American, referred to as "Shine," fleeing the titanic when it was sinking. Several white people offer "Shine" different things if he would save them. Shine just swims on to Harlem while all the white people sink and die. To me, this poem sends the attitude "why should African Americans help white people after all the years of injustices." Following the apparent theme of Hokum, this poem definitely wasn't funny. I probably wouldn't even call it amusing because it felt morbid.