As a first world country, we’ve forgotten or even neglected the history and struggles of those third world countries, specifically, African history. Derek Wallcott’s poem “The Sea is History” addresses this issue. As a minority in our society, the Eurocentric education system doesn’t take much of their culture into consideration. This is wrong, because during the 20th century especially they played a large role in the making of our modern day culture and society in North America. For example icons of African ethnicity such as Martin Luther King Jr. had a huge impact on the subject of black rights and was, if not the most important platform for those of African culture to make a word for themselves in our present day. Now that I’ve mentioned the importance of this topic, I question why we hide the history of where they came from. Walcott mentions this with his quote “strop on these oggles, I’ll guide you there myself. It’s all subtle and submarine , though colonnades of coral” (37-40). Black history is easy to find and people out there know that the bodies of the african people who jumped off the ship lie at the bottom of the ocean (their history), but no one is prepared to dig it up, this is a metaphor with the goggles and submarines. Once again bringing up why it’s wrong that he leaves out a portion of their history even though their influence on our society is so significant.
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