Mr. Z

Mr.Z
M. Carl Holman


I see this poem as actually a testimony to the pressure to denounce one's ethnicity- if not white. Mr. Z seems to do everything he is capable of to become a traditional white man. He marries a white woman, who too has lost the roots to her heritage, he disowns the music of his culture, and he refuses the food of a traditional African Americans in the United States at the time. The fact that his own wife is trying to find relief from the harsh stereotypes yields that it is very common to be found under this pressure. So it only makes sense that he would make every move possible to become more accepted in the Anglo-Saxon barriers of the United States, and only seems to earn the title "one of the most distinguished members of his race" (as if the standard of "distinguished" is low in the first place). This could potentially be seen in a positive light, that he overcame the stereotypes and was true to the meaning of his heritage, but in fact, it is just the opposite. Rather than refusing to be a denizen of hope and promise, he manifests the standards of the racist white man and tries to become just like them. He becomes more and more a mold of what society has wanted him to be, living on the right streets, eating the "normal" food, and disowning everything he came from.