Essay About Maya Angelou And White Woman

Caged Bird
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The only thing that has surprised me so far in this book, is how
racist people still were at that time. It is very surprising to find out
that how racist people were actually affected Maya Angelou into thinking
almost the same way others thought. For instance, in the beginning of this
book when Maya Angelou wrote about one day her waking up having blonde hair
and blue eyes and then everyone would be asking her for forgiveness just
because of that.
The Cages Of Maya Angelou Maya Angelou wrote an amazing and entertaining autobiography
titled I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, about her hard life growing up as a black girl from the
South. Among the hardships are metaphores known as “cages”. “Cages” are things that keep people
from succeeding in life and being everything they want to be. Some of Maya Angelous cages
include being black in the 1940s, and her overbearing grandmother. For myself a major “cage” is
being young. A major “cage” from Maya Angelous youth was that she was black in a prejudice
southern town. Maya has recounted in her book the times when she was discriminated against.
When she was working for a white woman named Mrs. Viola Cullinan, she started calling Margaret,
Mary. “Thats [Margaret] too long. Shes Mary from now on.”(pp.91) One of the most important
aspects of a person is their name. It is a great insult for someone to change your name, without your
consent, just because someone wanted too. If Maya was white Mrs. Cullinan would not have
changed her name. She did it only because of her racist friends, and attitudes. Even some of the
white s, who supposedly supported her, had hidden their racist feelings in seemingly nice remarks.
Maya conveys the words of Mr. Edward Donleavy, one of the people in the masquerade, “The
white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and
Gauguins, and our boys (the girls werent included) would try to be Jesse Owens and Joe
Louises.”(pp.151) Maya was forced to listen to Mr. Donleavys stereotypes of how white children
could be thinkers, and black children can only be athletes. What was supposed to be an
encouraging speech, which Mr. Donleavy probably thought was sincere, turned out to be just
another racist and stereotypical message. Perhaps it was not so much Mr. Donleavys fault, because
he was trying to be nice, but more of his background. Racism was the most prominent of Mayas
“cages” and it is probably due to the society and ignorant ideals. The second major cage for Maya
Angelou was that she has a very strict, religious, and overbearing grandmother. A childs guardian
be caring and strict but that guardian should not be overbearing. After coming back from Mrs.
Flowers house bringing Bailey some cookies, Maya is disciplined by momma; “I repeated, I said,
Bailey by the way, Mrs. Flowers sent you- [Momma responds] Thats what I thought you said. Go
on and take off your dress. Im going to get a switch.”(pp.85) Mayas grandmother punishing Maya
just for using a common everyday phrase seems to be a little harsh. Mayas grandmother was trying
to raise her well, but the way she did it could have the opposite effect. Just when she was making
progress, getting out of her depression and taking a step forward with Mrs. Flowers, the