Write the explanation of the essay entitled "The Twelve Million

Write the explanation of the essay entitled “The Twelve Million Black Voices”. (Part-2)

Ans.

Explanations

(6) We could scarcely believe that we were free, and our restlessness and incessant mobility were our naive way of testing that freedom. Just as a kitten stretches and yawns after a long sleep, so thousands of us tramped from place to place for the sheer sake of moving, looking, wondering landless upon the land.

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay, Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. The writer describes the poor and slavish condition of the black-coloured people in the U.S.A.

Explanation: The writer describes the early feelings of the Negroes when they had got freedom from the social bondage. Though they were declared free, yet they were living in slavery of the white landlords who still treated them as their slaves. Such slavery had continued for them even after 300 years. They were made free after the declaration of the famous. Emancipation Proclamation for their freedom from the bondage. The black people could not believe that they were free. They were restless about their regular movement as the simple method of their test for freedom.

The writer gives the example of the young cats which stretch their body and they yawn after a long sleep. In the same way the black people moved from one place to another in large numbers. In this way they celebrated their newly got freedom only for the sake of moving out on the land which belonged to the white landlords. It was only a joke upon their life and freedom without any right for them on the land.

(7) Our women fared easier than we men during the early days of freedom: on the whole their relationship to the world was more stable than ours. Their authority was supreme in most of our families in as much as many of them had worked in the big houses of the Lords of the land and had learnt manners.

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 black women were in a better position than their male companions in making their relationship with the people of the outer world.

Explanation: The writer says that both black coloured men and women had been living a slave of the white people but the black women were in a better position than that of their male members. The women used to serve in the houses of the white masters to do all kinds of menial work when their male companions were sent from one plantation to another to til! the land. In this way the men could not learn anything about their good living but their women learn! good manners in the household of their white masters because they used to see the decent life of the white men closely.

When the black people became free after the abolition of slavery, the black women brought with them their good manners in the life of the white. households. In this way, these women changed for the better in the life of black families happy with their wisdom. In this way during those early days of freedom the position of women became supreme in the black families. They not only had good manners but they also had the knowledge of cooking, sewing and also other good manners.

(8) They enjoyed a status denied to us, men. being called “Mammy” and through the years they became symbols of motherhood, retaining in their withered bodies the burden of our folk wisdom. reigning as arbiters in our domestic affairs until we men were freed and had moved to cities where cash paying jobs enabled to become the heads of our own families.

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay, “Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. The writer describes the position of Negro women in the society of black people.

Explanation: The writer says that the family life of the black people during slavery of more than three hundred years was very backward because they did not have any free family life of their own. Its reason was that men had to wander from one place to another as farm labourers. Then their women used to remain in the houses of the landlords to serve them as domestic servants. Both black men and black women could not live together in the same house as the members of the joint family.

When the women lived in the houses of their landlords as slave women upto the time they became old. Then they were permitted to live in the slaves hut in order to look after their children. In this way those women enjoyed the position of motherhood but their husbands could not get the position of fathers. In this way the black women became the real symbol of motherhood. They had wisdom to solve their family problems. The men went to cities in search of jobs to earn money to live a normal family life.

(9) If we have worked upon these plantations before, we are legally bound to plant, tend, and harvest another crop. If we should escape to the city to avoid paying our mounting debts, white policemen track us down and ship us back to the plantation.

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay, ‘Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. The writer makes it clear that black men did not enjoy any real freedom even after the abolition of slavery.

Explanation: The writer makes it very clear that even after the abolition of slavery, the black people who were living in the U.S.A. did not enjoy any real freedom. There most of the black people worked hard as labourers on the plantations of the white landlords specially growing cotton for their white landlords. After such nominal freedom the black labourers took part in the share-cropping which was another kind of slavery. The white landlords gave them land and the black tilled it and they also shared seeds and fertilizers.

Since the black labourers did not have their land, the white landlords got the services of the black people to till their land in that system of share cropping. If they tilled the land they were legally bound to grow second crop. If they tried to run away to the city to avoid the payment of rising debts because of share-cropping they were chased by the police and they were sent back to the same plantation. In this way their slavery continued even after the Emancipation Proclamation in the direction of their freedom.

(10) Kings are dictatorial: cotton is not only dictatorial but self destructive, an imperious woman in the throes of constant childbirth, a woman who is driven by her greedy passion to bear endless bales of cotton, though she well knows that she will die if she continues to give birth to her fleecy children.

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay, ‘Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. The writer describes the rules of Queen Cotton which were related to the life of black people as slaves in the U.S.A.

Explanation: The writer says that the black people worked on the plantations of the white landlords as labourers for growing cotton for them. The writer compares them with poor slaves working under cruel landlords and they worked hard to till their land. He compares cotton with a queen. A king may be cruel like a dictator but a queen is not only a dictator but she is also self-destructive. He further says that cotton plantation proves self destructive for them.

The writer further says that cotton is the dominating woman who makes her struggle during her pain of delivery constantly in giving birth to a child. As a woman wishes to have more children, so a slave woman wishes to earn more and more money because of her over-greed which ultimately kills her.

The writer further says that the cotton plantation is regarded as a highly profitable work and it proves self-destructive in the end. With this reason the lives of the black workers engaged in the plantation work are guided by the laws of the Queen Cotton from which they should get rid of.

(11) To plant vegetables for our tables we were often forbidden, for raising a garden narrowed the area to be planted in cotton. The world demanded cotton, and the Lords of the Land ordered more acres to be planted-planted right up to our doorsteps !-and the ritual of Queen Cotton became brutal and bloody.

Reference to the Context: These lines are an extract from the essay, ‘Twelve Million Black Voices’ written by Richard Wright. The writer describes the evil effects of the cotton plantation by the black labourers for the rich and cruel white landlords of the U.S.A.

Explanation: The writer makes it clear that the work of the cotton plantation was highly destructive for the black tillers for their white landlords in America. The white landlords had engaged the black workers to work hard for them in cotton growing on their plantations because it gave them lot of money. It was their greed to earn more and more money that they used to take more and more work from the black tillers by growing cotton only.

The writer further says that the white landlords were so greedy that they did not permit the black workers to grow even vegetables because in that way the cotton growing area would be reduced to a smaller size. There was a great demand for cotton by some countries of the world that the landlords wanted to supply the necessary quantity of cotton. They ordered their workers to grow more and more cotton. They did not care if the cotton growing area extended even upto their door steps. They treated the slaves in a cruel manner. The cruel and destructive laws of the Queen Cotton had become very cruel and much violent for the poor workers.