The Little Black Boy - review.

... ~Tara Lyn Dobie, NE4~ My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white; The little black boy has internalised conventional messages about black and white. The second line indicates that he has learned society's message that white means good and innocent. White as an angel is the English child, But I am black as if bereav'd of light. The third and fourth lines re-instate that he shares society's view that it is heavenly to be white; angels are close to god. Her feels like he has been given a harder lot in life in being black, that he has been denied the light of God. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east began to say: The illustration from the first plate shows the African mother explaining

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