Essex Hemphill's "Soft Targets"
In class today, I recited Essex Hemphill's "Soft Targets" for Black Girls for my poetry recitation of the quarter. My classmates impressed me with their personal thoughts and reading into the poem, and I wanted to expand on some of their comments and share them here, so please feel free to comment if you have something to say! Also, the poem is at the end of the poem if you want to go over it again. Loewy and other girls made the point that growing up, their parents hated to get them barbie dolls, especially their fathers. Its interesting that this issue doesn't directly affect Hemphill, the man in this man who is destroying the Barbies, or these fathers, yet they care about these issues, which is really important. Hemphill doesn't make it a woman, but a man who is standing up for the small black girls and what they are dealing with by nailing Barbies to telephone poles and setting them aflame, and I think Hemphill is trying to make a point with that. Hemph