Ethics

Respecting my elders was one of the first lessons I learned when I was younger. My parents were quick to teach me the proper way to behave around adults. This has helped me now, as I am older and dealing with adults on a regular bases. I know at school my teachers will show me respect, if I give them respect. It is easier in the long run to respect my teachers because we both benefit from it. There was a handle full of troublemakers in middle school, none which had any respect from their teachers. This made their life more difficult than it would have been if they showed their teachers some respect. The teachers could not trust these certain students and they were constantly getting on the teachers nerves and ended out to sit in the hall the majority of the time. I am able to see from my peers, the relationship between the teachers when they show them respect and when they don’t. Respecting my grandparents and especially my parents makes my life much much easier because I am getting in less trouble. Having a sister, we are able to watch what happens when the other talks back to a parent, we see the consequences and know we do not want that happening to us. So we try to behave the best we can, we make mental notes on how we can act more proper. My parents were raised to respect their parents and any other adults, so they passed the knowledge down to me because they think it is an important lesson for everyone to learn. My parents had taught me a lot on how to behave and how to make good choices, they are still teaching me lessons and giving lectures when I make mistakes even at age 18 because they want to prepare me for the world. They want me be able to make good decisions when I am out on my own.

Langston Hughes and Claude McKay

Langston Hughes and Claude McKay were both poets during the Harlem Renaissance. They covered similar topics in some of their poems since they were both at their prime during the same time period. But both poets had different writing styles. Claude McKay wrote his poems in the sonnet form, a style similar to the way Shakespeare wrote. Writing his poems in sonnet form, proved to the white man that African Americans can be creative, artistic, and also are educated if they can have the opportunities. Though Hughes did not write his poetry in sonnet form, he used other creative styles of writing to get his points across. Both men talked about the relationships between the white and black man and how white man's treatment towards African Americans is horrible and unkind. McKay’s, To the White Fiends, is about the blacks not stooping to the white man’s level. He said they could hurt the white men like the white men have been hurting them if they wanted too, but God but them on earth for another reason, and that reason is to bring the light. In Hughes poems, Theme for English B, says he and his teacher are both part of each other, though he is black and the instructor is white. Neither one wants to be part of each other, but they are learning things from one another. But there is not way to put an end to it, it is inevitable to stop because they are around each other. His other poem, Mulatto, is also an example of the relationship between whites and blacks. Both men wanted to use their writing as a way to express what was occurring around them, but the two poets were different because of the style they used to write their poems.