English Literature

As the main character of the poem entitled Incident, the experience of being judged by my skin color for the first time was really an enduring memory for me. Because of that one incident during my childhood, I, as the speaker of the poem, became more wary of other people especially the whites. I am proud of being black and I have lived a peaceful life despite my skin color. However, this experience introduced me to the prejudices that whites have over people of my race and it definitely influenced how I relate with other people. The incident inspired me to be dream big and work hard to achieve my goals so that I would no longer be looked down anymore. Although I am no longer eight years old, I am still very emotional in retelling the experience in Baltimore.

In the first stanza, I expressed how I was filled with excitement as we took a tour around Baltimore. The second stanza of the poem shows that as a child, I was not yet aware of prejudices. The confidence to smile at a stranger is very natural for children, so I smiled at the Baltimorean who was looking straight at me. But instead of smiling back, the stranger poked out his tongue and called me Nigger (lines 7-8). I recognized at once that the word was meant to insult him. This proved to be a traumatic experience for him, and despite spending almost a year in Baltimore, I somehow regret the reality that my whole trip was summarized all in that one incident, and each time that Baltimore would be mentioned to him, I only remember it as the place where I experienced being insulted and looked down upon for the first time due to my skin color.