This poem by Maya Angelou has recently gone viral, and I don't see the issue that so many people are having. The message here is quite obvious and not racist in any way. Are there any valid critiques other than people having scruples with free verse and daring to critique self-imposed poverty?
>>25288780N
>>25288780The poetry itself is shit but the message is funny and correct. Describes my (spic, not black) mother pretty well.
>Too fat to whore,>Too mad to work,But enough about the mother of the poster below me
interesting that people default to a black woman with this poem, the race is never specified. i like the poem a lot for that fact tbdesu. also this isn't free verse, people are retarded.
>>25288780This reads like someone from /pol/ wrote it.She's in for a rough awakening that the people who claim to be on her side actually just want her and blacks to be on THEIR side.These people hate the idea that most of poverty is directly tied to poor personal choice. That is not unique to blacks or any other race, Theodore Dalrymple wrote about it working in London in the 1980s and 90s.
>>25288780It's funny that now the "Welfare Queen" rhetoric gets exclusively pinned on Regan and the GOP when Clinton and his sycophants like Angelou were some of the biggest proponents for spewing contempt and venom on welfare recipients.
>>25288780Great poem by the way, the controversy is merited. They don't understand the things she says on Twitter.
>>25288794Kekked>>25288796It's heavily, heavily implied. No one who knows anything about the American south or traditional black culture would say it was anything but a black woman. Proof is left as an exercise to (you).
>>25288797>Maya AngelouNVM, she died in 2014.Good to know she's still making Reddit seethe so many years after.
>>25288796reminds me of the whole "Try That in a Small Town" controversy, the opening lyrics were>suckerpunch somebody on the sidewalk>carjack an old lady at a red light>pull a gun on the owner of a liquor storeand it was called racist because of that
>>25288807that is a good point, though i imagine most people will imagine it's a black woman since maya angelou of all people wrote it.i have no idea what her intended meaning behind it was, but i do like the idea the poem presents. i'm from the south(ish), so this poem can easily fit one of the millions of scantily-dressed obese white women here. i could even imagine a native american getting their resbucks for malt liquor. if anything, it shows poverty affects everyone.
>>25288828It cannot as the urban environment ("rooftop tag") combined with "fatback and lima beans" narrows it down to just black women. Morbidly obese urban non black women don't eat soul food.>if anything, it shows poverty affects everyone.I think it's just a kind of vignette personally but I'm not that familiar with poetry, let alone her.
>>25288860>Morbidly obese urban non black women don't eat soul food.I'm sorry, but this is just factually untrue.
>>25288870I'm sure some exist if you want to be pedantic. Broadly speaking and specifically for "fat back and lima beans" it's so uncommon that angelou certainly would have understood it to signal a black woman. Mac and cheese is not what I'm talking about. I'm not interested in bad faith larp so this will be my last reply.
>>25288780>>>> inb4 black women are fat and lazy and paid for by the taxpayer>>> wow so soulful>> hey wait a minute i was going to criticize that black women are fat lazy and paid for by the taxpayer> muh church need mo money fo dem programs30 year treasuries at 5% inflation a year means half of government revenues go to debt servicing
>>25288780mayocucks seething
>>25288807>he says, as if white southerners aren't just as notorious for being fat welfare queens as black southernersit's a Yankee's world boy. You'd best remember that
>>25289723>white southerners aren't just as notoriousnotoriety exists in the mind. white people still are productive members of society, on average. the fattest, dumbest, laziest, most wellfare grubby chud is STILL a better citizen than over half the black or brown population. it's a simple economic and sociological fact.but what does this have to do with literature?
>>25289733>notoriety exists in the mind.>white people still are productive members of society, on average.>the fattest, dumbest, laziest, most wellfare grubby chud is STILL a better citizen than over half the black or brown population.>it's a simple economic and sociological fact.my opponents refute themselvesAlexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer
