In The Little Black Boy, a black child discusses his spirituality by using the color of his skin to determine his position with God and his position in society. It is very obvious to claim that there is some racism in the poem. But what is actually racist about the poem is very debatable. The child was born with black skin, but claims that his soul is white. His mother tells him that the sun, where God lives, creates the light. Perhaps the whiteness of his soul that the boy refers to is the symbolic color for the light that God sheds upon his creation. The poem continues to say that because of the color of his skin, the black boy can bare the heat and the light from the sun's rays. The black boy says that, "these black bodies, and this sun burnt face, Is but a cloud and like a shady grove". Because their skin can bare the pain, they are closer to God. They are his lambs, and he is the shepherd. God says, "come out from the grove, my love and care, and round my golden tent like lambs rejoice." Perhaps this golden tent alludes to the tent that Moses entered when he met with God in the desert to lead the Israelites to his kingdom of the promised land. Like Moses, the black boy is chosen by God.
The boy directs the rest of his speech to the 'little English boy saying, "When I from black and he from white cloud free, and round the tent of God like lambs we joy, I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear, to lean in joy upon our fathers knee." The English boy sheds his white cloud, as the black boy sheds his black cloud. The cloud symbolizes the skin of the black boy and the white boy. The cloud is very literal and very deceiving. Society has placed the black boy at a lower level of the human hierarchy than the white boy because of his skin. But this, too, deceives the people from knowing that the black boy's soul is white, truthful, righteous and honest. The white boy's soul is darker. Because of the white boy's skin, the black boy will bring the white boy to the truth, because he was given the power, through his skin to bear God's rays of light and heat.
The last two lines, "And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair and be like him and he will then love me," is very tricky. Is the black boy referring to the silver hair of God? Through art and literature God is known to have silver hair. Or is the black boy referring to the white boy's hair? My interpretation is that the black boy was referring to the white boy. The black boy is able to touch God's knee. But the knee is symbolic of a sign of reverence. We kneel down in front of a cross or a king to show respect. Although the narrator is a child, naive and full of hope, to be able to touch the hair of God is a mighty gesture and honor. However, Moses was the one person, able to see the face of God and his hair turned white because of it. If the black boy was symbolic of Moses, perhaps this theory of the silver haired person to be God would be acceptable. But I believe that the main focus of the poem is the acceptance of the spirituality of the black boy through God's eyes and through the white boy's eyes. The white boy represents the whole of society, and sadly, the only way for the black boy to be loved and accepted by him, is the revelation of the black boy's white soul, and the action of saving the white boy's black soul. As unfortunate as having to prove one's worth is, The poem Little Black Boy, personifies the truth concerning our perception of the people in the world around us.
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