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Introduction 1A — Global issue + texts

My global issue is how systemic racial injustice restricts individual rights and belonging through institutional exclusion. By systemic, I mean racial discrimination embedded in laws, spaces, routines, and social expectations that regulate daily life. Institutional ostracism determines who may enter shared spaces, who may participate visibly in the nation, and whose humanity is recognised. My literary text is Langston Hughes’s 1926 poem “I, Too,” alongside his wider poetry. My non-literary text is Gordon Parks’s photograph “Outside Looking In”, alongside his “Segregation Story” series.

Introduction 1B — Hughes/Parks argument

As a central Harlem Renaissance figure, Hughes exposes exclusion from within through the Black speaking voice, turning domestic spaces into expressions of psychological pressure and denied belonging. Parks, documenting ordinary life under Jim Crow, makes exclusion visible through fences, signage, and segregated facilities. Together, they expose the contradiction within America’s founding promise. A nation founded on the claim that “all men are created equal” engineers exclusion into ordinary spaces. Yet neither artist reduces Black Americans to the restrictions imposed upon them. Their works foreground dignity, agency, and reclamation of belonging.

“I, Too” opening + Whitman

I will begin with Hughes’s poem “I, Too.” Its opening line, “I, too, sing America,” is both an assertion and a corrective. Through its intertextual dialogue with Walt Whitman’s vision of America, Hughes inserts the Black speaker into a national chorus that has omitted him.

“too” + assertion

The additive adverb “too” quietly exposes that exclusion. The direct statement remains unequivocal. The speaker does not petition for belonging. Rather, he asserts it.

“darker brother” + grammar

This intensifies in the line, “I am the darker brother.” The adjective “darker” marks racial difference, but grammatically it remains subordinate to the noun “brother.” Hughes therefore frames Blackness as a difference within kinship, not a justification for segregation.

Synecdoche + “They”

The singular speaker functions as a synecdoche for Black Americans more broadly. In contrast, the indefinite pronoun “They” leaves those enforcing this exclusion unnamed. Racism appears diffuse, routinised, and systemic.

Kitchen allegory + microcosm

Hughes then constructs a domestic spatial allegory through “They send me to eat in the kitchen / When company comes.” The household becomes a microcosm of America. The kitchen represents enforced invisibility, while the dining table represents participation and equal citizenship.

“When company comes” + facade

Crucially, the speaker is hidden only “when company comes.” This exposes racism as a social performance. The household already contains its “darker brother,” yet conceals him to preserve a facade of racial hierarchy.

“But” + tonal shift

The adversative conjunction “But” initiates a tonal shift. “But I laugh, / And eat well, / And grow strong.” The polysyndeton of “And” produces a cumulative rhythm, while the short, end-stopped lines convey controlled resilience.

Victimhood + determination

Langston refuses to reduce the speaker to victimhood. Exclusion has not extinguished his identity. Paradoxically, it nourishes his determination.

“Tomorrow” + table

The isolated temporal marker “Tomorrow” converts hope into certainty. “I’ll be at the table” spatialises the reclamation of rights. The refrain returns with a decisive lexical shift.

“sing America” to “am America” + shame

The poem begins, “I, too, sing America,” but ends, “I, too, am America.” The speaker moves from contribution to identity, asserting that his identity is inseparable from the nation itself. In the lines “They’ll see how beautiful I am / And be ashamed,” Langston reverses the direction of shame. Disgrace is transferred from the excluded subject to the system that attempted to exclude him.

“I Look at the World” + confinement

This spatial pattern extends across Langston’s wider poetry. In “I Look at the World,” the speaker confronts a “fenced-off narrow space / Assigned to me.” The passive verb “assigned” exposes inequality as externally imposed and institutionally allocated. The contracted lineation visually mirrors his confinement.

“I look” + praxis

Yet the anaphoric repetition of “I look” structures a growing awareness. The speaker looks first at the world, then at the “silly walls,” then inward at his body, and finally towards his “own hands.” This progression transforms perception into purposeful action. The dismissive adjective “silly” strips those walls of moral legitimacy. The imperative, “let us hurry, comrades,” expands the solitary “I” into a communal “us.”

“Harlem” + dream deferred

Where “I Look at the World” imagines dismantling oppressive walls, “Harlem” warns of the consequences when such structures persist. The phrase “dream deferred” contains a sharp semantic dissonance. “Dream” evokes aspiration and possibility, whereas “deferred” reduces that hope to something repeatedly postponed and denied.

Decay lexicon + explosion

Through an interrogative cascade, Hughes explores the pressure created by prolonged injustice. The dream may “dry up,” “fester,” “stink,” “crust,” or “sag” beneath a “heavy load.” This decay lexicon shows that exclusion does not simply delay hope. It corrodes it and allows resentment to accumulate. The final line ruptures the poem’s restraint. “Or does it explode?” Hughes abandons the preceding chain of similes. The dream is no longer compared to something else. It simply bursts outward. The isolated final verb converts suppressed pressure into collective praxis. Across these poems, Hughes’s recurring enclosure motif charts a trajectory from enforced exclusion to resistance.

Transition to Parks + ordinary life

Having examined how Hughes verbalises exclusion, I will turn to how Parks makes its physical structures visible. Parks documents ordinary life, not only spectacular events. Segregation appears pervasive and inescapable, woven into daily routines until ordinary spaces become instruments of control.

Colour photography + immediate discrimination

Parks’s colour photography creates a disturbing contrast between visual beauty and institutional ugliness. His composed images make discrimination feel immediate, ordinary, and impossible to escape.

“Outside Looking In” camera position

In “Outside Looking In,” Parks adopts an eye-level shot from behind the children. We do not inspect them from a detached distance. We stand behind them and share their sightline.

Gaze + fence

Their collective gaze directs ours through the chain-link fence towards the distant playground and Ferris wheel. The fence is more than a symbol. Its rigid grid obstructs our field of vision, forcing us to encounter exclusion as the visual condition through which the image must be read.

Foreground-background juxtaposition

Parks intensifies this inequality through foreground-background juxtaposition. The foreground is crowded by weeds and overgrown vegetation, whereas the recreational space beyond the fence appears open and manicured.

Denied entry + spatialised possibility

Segregation is visible not only through denied entry but through unequal care, investment, and possibility. The playground remains close enough to be seen, yet institutionally inaccessible. Through compositional depth, Parks spatialises denied possibility.

Children not passive

However, the children are not represented as passive. Several press towards the fence, and the older girl on the right steadies a younger child with her hand.

Communal care + dignity

This gesture introduces communal care into a frame dominated by institutional separation. Segregation restricts movement, but it cannot eliminate tenderness, solidarity, or dignity.

Department Store sign + hierarchy

This sense of inescapable control recurs in “Department Store.” The neon “Colored Entrance” sign is the most salient element in the upper-left frame. Its elevated placement establishes a visual hierarchy, positioning the discriminatory label above the woman and the child beneath it.

Looming sign + Hughes’s “They”

The sign looms over them, suggesting segregation is a constant force hanging above Black Americans and looking down upon them. By intruding upon an ordinary outing, the sign embeds humiliation within daily life. In this sense, it speaks with the same anonymous authority as Hughes’s “They.” Both depersonalise power while revealing its pervasive reach.

Lighting + social routine

The lighting sharpens this tension. The artificial neon cuts through the soft daylight of an otherwise ordinary afternoon. Segregation stands out visually but feels socially routine, absorbed into everyday life.

Facade + slipped strap

Their pristine dresses and composed posture resist the degrading label imposed upon them. Their composure becomes a protective facade. Within a system they cannot escape, appearing unshaken becomes resistance. The slipped strap on the woman’s dress preserves an unpolished human detail, allowing Parks to affirm dignity without idealising his subject.

Drinking Fountain + basic human necessity

In “At Segregated Drinking Fountain,” Parks shows how institutional exclusion controls access to a basic human necessity. The frontal, eye-level framing presents a bright storefront filled with ice-cream advertisements, decorative patterns, and colourful clothing.

WHITE ONLY sign + delayed recognition

The small “WHITE ONLY” sign remains visible, but embedded among larger advertisements, it briefly recedes into the background. This delayed recognition mirrors the normalisation of segregation itself. Racism has been absorbed into the visual landscape of everyday life.

Man and child + waiting

The man’s gesture towards the young girl is significant. He guides her towards the fountain while the others wait nearby. The image shows segregation being taught early.

Facilities + communal care

Children learn which facilities they may use and which spaces they may inhabit. Yet it also records communal care. The adult guides the child within an environment designed to humiliate them.

Conclusion — cruelty + history

Ultimately, Hughes and Parks expose the cruelty of a society that allows human beings to deny one another dignity and visibility. Their works may appear rooted in the past, yet they refuse to remain confined to history. The explicit signs of Jim Crow segregation have disappeared, but racial injustice has not.

Conclusion — adapted racism + final warning

It has adapted, becoming less visible while shaping lived experience. A century after “I, Too,” these works force us to confront the unsettling question of how much has truly changed. If a modern society can call itself just and fair while exclusion persists, then these works are not outdated. They remain a reminder of our capacity to normalise injustice and a warning against mistaking the disappearance of visible barriers for the disappearance of racism itself.