Write the explanation of the essay entitled "The Twelve Million

Write the explanation of the essay entitled “The Twelve Million Black Voices”. (Part-1)

Ans.

Explanations

(1) This island, within whose confines we live, is anchored in the feelings of millions of people, and is situated in the midst of the sea of white faces we meet each day: and by and large, as three hundred years of time has borne our nation into the twentieth century, its rocky boundaries have remained unyielding to the waves of our hope that dash against it.

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay. Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. These lines are taken from the same book by the writer published in 1941 showing the short history of the American Negroes.

Explanation: Here the writer describes the condition of the black people or Negroes who are living in America. They have created a psychological island for them where they lived separately from the white people of America. The white people are compared to the big sea because they are in majority there. The black people are like an island there because they are in minority. The black people exchange their business with the white people everyday. They have been living in the same condition of separation for the last three hundred years upto the twentieth century and that separation might be for ever.

The black people faced racial differences from the white people poles apart from one another on the basis of their feelings in spite of their living in the same society of America. The writer called it as a lasting rocky wall between the white people and the black people. The black people had their hopes and aspirations to get them while living in the American society but the white people had their prejudice against them not to let them succeed. The hopes of the black people had dashed against the rocky wall of their hate without any possible results.

(2) Three hundred years are a long time for millions of folk like us to be held in such subjection, so long a time that perhaps scores of years will have to pass before we shall be able to express what this slavery has done to us, for our personalities are still numb from its long shocks; and, as the numbness leaves our souls, we shall yet have to feel and give utterance to the full pain we shall inherit.

Reference to the Context: These line are an extract from the essay. ‘Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. The writer describes a very long period of the Negroes living in slavery in the United States of America.

Explanation: The writer himself is very sorry to note that the black people have been living in slavery in the U.S.A. for a long period of three hundred years as the part of social slavery of their white masters. Their such poor condition of slavery has done a great harm to their common people. They cannot express how much wrong they have tolerated in such slavery. They cannot express the reality because they have lost their sense of feeling of their long years of social slavery.

The writer further says that the common Negroes have become cold in their feelings on account of the long sufferings of slavery. They do not feel it much now because it has become the part and parcel of their daily life, so such pain does not move them any more. They will take many many long years to recover from such deep effect of slavery to return to their normal life because even their souls have become cold due to slavery. It should be noted that they will take some more time to become free from such pain and describe it fully in words to show to the world.

(3) They have painted one picture : charming, idyllic, romantic, but we live another: full of the fear of the Lords of the Land, bowing and grinning when we meet white faces, toiling from sun to sun, living in unpainted wooden shacks that sit casually and insecurely upon the red clay.

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay, Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. The writer says that the real condition of the Negroes is very had and backward in the U.S.A.

Explanation: The writer makes it clear that the real condition of the black people is opposite of what has been described by the great literary writers. They have made use of movies, the radio and the newspapers to express the idyl and romantic picture of the life of the black people and it is not real but it is only imaginary. It may look charming from out side but it is not real in any way.

The writer further says that the church has also described it in the same way. After reading their such picture the readers think that the black people are very happy in their life in the U.S.A. but it is quite wrong. It is true that the black people constantly live in regular fear of their Lords of the Land. When they come face to face to the white people they have to greet their white masters with a false smile on their faces after hiding their internal grief in order to please their landlords with grin. Really they work hard from morning till evening even after living in poor huts with no comfort.

(4) In the main we are different from other folk in that, when an impulse moves us, when we are caught in the throes of inspiration, when we are moved to better our lot, we do not ask ourselves: ‘can we do it’ but : ‘will they let us do ?’

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay. Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. The black skinned Negroes live a miserable life of slavery in the U.S.A. They live in poor huts and they never think of progress.

Explanation: In these lines, the great writer clearly shows the difference between the white coloured people and the black coloured Negroes. They have their separate social status which makes an important effect on their mind time and again.

As they live in complete slavery of the whites, they are not free to express their real feelings because every time they imagine the consequences of their speeches. Even when they have the feeling or an impulse to express their feelings, an inward inspiration makes them to speak what they like to speak. They do not have a feeling to express by their thoughts or actions because they are afraid of their white master who would not like to let them speak out freely. Under such situation they are afraid of the anger of their white masters that they should do something wrong with them. In short. they are not free to express their hearty feelings. Secondly. their white masters might not permit them to say what they liked.

(5) Before we black folk can move, we must first look into the white man’s mind to see what is there, to see what he is thinking and the white man’s mind is a mind that is always changing.

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay. Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. It is true that the black coloured Negroes of America had been regarded as slaves of the white people fully under their control. They were compelled to till their land as slave labourers. Then they had no right to think about their progress.

Explanation: The writer asserts that the black coloured people or the Negroes had been living a different life under slavery of the white people of the U.S.A. They had no freedom to express any thoughts of their own because their slavery did not permit them to speak out anything freely. Before speaking out anything they thought about the reaction of the white people as their complete masters.

The writer further says that the black Negroes had taken away their zest for life on account of their long slavery under their masters. Then they used to work hard on their land under compulsion because they kept them in constant fear and slavery. Before speaking out anything from their side they had to think twice about the punishment to be given to them by their white masters and their stand was not clear to them. The mind of the white was always changing so it was of constant fear to the black slaves.