Some people say that he often referred to slaves in his poetry. Whitman decided to side with the abolitionists after he saw that the issue of slavery was threatening to tear the nation apart.
He had not changed his views on race. Whitman saw what the issue was doing and decided that it was not worth the fight, though the Civil War still broke out and Whitman changed his interest to the suffering of soldiers on both sides.
One source that I found said that it is questionable about how Whitman really felt about slavery and African Americans.
He also portrayed them as beautiful, dignified, and intelligent. Whitman once wrote a novel about a man traveling down to the south and meeting a slave owner and a beautiful Creole slave woman who was sexually alluring, yet also vengeful and violent, showing that he fed into racist stereotypes. Although it is not very clear as to if Walt Whitman was a racist man or not, it is clear that he does not believe in interracial relationships.
It seems to me that Whitman did not really agree with slavery, but he was also influenced by the people around him. Whitman only chose to abolish slavery thinking that a war was just not worth it. He is America. His crudity is an exceeding great stench, but it is America. He is the hollow place in the rock that echoes with his time. He does 'chant the crucial stage' and he is the 'voice triumphant. He is an exceedingly nauseating pill, but he accomplished his mission.
Entirely free from the renaissance humanist ideal of the complete man or from the Greek idealism, he is content to be what he is, and he is his time and his people. He is a genius because he has vision of what he is and of his function.
He knows that he is a beginning and not a classically finished work. I honour him for he prophesied me while I can only recognise him as a forebear of whom I ought to be proud. In America there is much for the healing of the nations, but woe unto him of the cultured palate who attempts the dose. As for Whitman, I read him in many parts with acute pains, but when I write of certain things I find myself using his rhythms.
The expression of certain things related to cosmic consciousness seems tainted with this maramis. I am in common with every educated man an heir of the ages and I demand my birth-right.
Yet if Whitman represented his time in language acceptable to one accustomed to my standard of intellectual-artistic living he would belie his time and nation. And yet I am but one of his "ages and ages' encrustations" or to be exact an encrustation of the next age. The vital part of my message, taken from the sap and fibre of America, is the same as his. Mentally I am a Walt Whitman who has learned to wear a collar and a dress shirt although at times inimical to both.
Personally I might be very glad to conceal my relationship to my spiritual father and brag about my more congenial ancestry— Dante , Shakespeare , Theocritus, Villon , but the descent is a bit difficult to establish. You can also see BPOC in the office who have been absorbed and digested by the system, whereas others have left this institution. This is so true. Whitman does a decent job to prevent things from going tooooooo far, but we do not empower minority students and often left the groups feel marginalized and unheard.
Racism here is only an abstract concept to be discussed academically, but if something real arises, it sure will be handled with diplomacy, and everything will be swept under the rugs. The rupture between what has been discussed in class room and what is actually going on on campus is beyond irony. Whenever go to on-campus events, domestic students will be shocked about the way some faculty talk with me.
I have lived in several different countries, some for summer programs, some for study abroad programs. The way how the UK handled racism was completely shocking. Let us stand in solidarity. Let us support each other. Please, let us do not make things worse for each other.
We do not accept any of such behaviors. In London, my asian friend would chase strangers in the supermarket if they said nasty things and ask them to repeat to her face.
Then security threw out the two English teens. At here, Guess who would be thrown out if I chase after people who said nasty things and ask them to repeat? The small-mindedness is offensive as well as suffocating. A telling evidence of how trapped people are in their limited perspectives, and how they are obsessed with the idea of being ordinary, even though they are still so young. Lack of cultural education, poor emotional maturity, and no open-mindedness all play a part in the experiences shared by minority students.
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