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Analysis Of We Real Cool By Gwendolyn Brooks

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A list of things women could not legally do in 1950: start a bank account on her own, take birth control, serve in combat, or get an abortion. A list of things that Black people couldn’t do in 1950: attend school with white students, use a “white” library, live in “white” neighborhoods, or live a decent, non-racially segregated life. Gwendolyn Brooks would have been painfully aware of these facts, considering the fact that she occupied spaces in both of these marginalized groups. Because of her agency as a prolific poet, she was able to be an active voice for the voiceless- namely, women and black youth. Through the poems “The mother” and “We Real Cool,” Brooks argues that one cannot understand another person’s truth objectively without foregoing their preconceived notions about the life and experiences of others. Without understanding others, one cannot fully understand the world.
In “The Mother,” Brooks reflects on an abortion. Somewhat melancholic, the poem catalogues things that are missing when a baby isn’t born. No kisses, no games, no laughs. However, what Brooks asserts is that abortion does not mean an absence of love. In fact, she ends the poem with, “Believe me, I loved you all./ Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you/ All” (Brooks “The Mother” 31-33). Society has this perception that abortion directly correlates to a mother’s lack of love for the unborn child. In this poem, Brooks argues that that is not the case. In this instance, the

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