ENGL347
Feagin and Kimberly Ducey highlight , white scientists and intellectuals had long ‘ accepted scientific racism ,’ influenced by the theory that black people categorially sat between ‘ whites and gorillas .’ ( Feagin & Ducey 2018 p72-3 ) Thus , Angelou interlinks the idea of a drug addict with a black victim of white mockery from the outset of the poem , both having been dehumanized by their oppressors : the drugs and the white supremacist . This idea is first demonstrated through poetic sounds ; a moment of sibilance at the beginning , ‘ shoulders sag ,’ ( Angelou 2009 p17 ) implies the slurring of words due to substance use . Speech is slowed down by slurring ; thus , this is reflective of the physical silencing of black Americans . Historically , this occurred during slavery with the banning of reading and writing , ( Walker 2005 p234 ) but also after ‘ emancipation ’ through acts of white terrorism like lynching , that physically repressed the voice of black Americans through violence such as ‘ throttling ’ ( l . 18 ), as the narrator pinpoints . This verb derives from the noun ‘ throat ,’ but asserts notions of physical violence ; this is emphasised by the position of the double ‘ t ,’ in the middle , compressed between four letters on each side , symbolic of a tightening force around the throat , as seen in cases of lynching . Evidently , this physical silencing is exposed and criticised through representation within this poem . Moreover , the ‘ familiar magic lost ’ of the knees ( l . 6 ), implying the influence of substance on the physical body , arguably refers to the disappearance of black women ’ s creativity as a result
of racism . As noted by Alice Walker , black women have long been denied creative outlets , dying ‘ with their real gifts stifled within them .’ ( 2005 p234 ) Racism has inherently destroyed the potential for black women ’ s creativity , here labelled as ‘ magic ’ by Angelou ; their potential inventiveness is lost in the past , and thus forgotten , by white structures . This is highlighted by the forgetfulness of the ‘ junkie ’ due to drugs ; ‘ Old bend and / Lock and bend forgot ’ ( ll . 6-7 ). ‘ Bend ’ is repeated in emphasis of forgetfulness and is separated by a break in the line , which structurally assists notions of lacking memory . Further to this , the structure of the poem itself metaphorically resembles an absence of mindful clarity due to substance use , symbolic of a lacking control over oneself . Its incoherence and fragmentation indicate this as a critical representation of the treatment of the physical black body undergoing racial abuse during both slavery and the Jim Crow era , when new phases of white violence like lynching arose , as mentioned prior . For example , stanza one is a quatrain , while stanzas two and three are tercets , and then stanza four picks up the two lines dropped after stanza one by stanzas two and three , to make a quintain . By drawing parallels between the effects of drugs and the black American struggle , furthermore , Angelou condemns the American State for having intentionally associated rising drug use to blackness towards the latter half of the twentieth century . Around the time that she wrote ‘ Junkie Monkey Reel ,’ America ’ s criminal justice system was responding to the federal government ’ s racist
19
ENGLISH