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.
Hemphill points out towards the end of the poem that whether its in the "integrated suburbs, after ballet class" or in the "ghetto evenings after double dutch", no black girl can relate to a Barbie doll. No matter how "white" a black girl can act, they can never be integrated into the doll system that is every little girl's dream image. I think its symbolic that Hemphill chose ballet in the poem, because ballet is an activity that highly recommends and has for the most part been an activity of uniformity. Everyone looks the same, dances the same, moves the same. The skin color plays a part as well, as the ballet community is mostly of white women. When we compare the uniform Barbies and the uniform ballet, we can see how both make it harder for a little black girl to appreciate herself.

He was arrested and detainedfor nailing Barbie doll headsto telephone poles.He was beatenwhile in custody, accused.After healing, he resumedhis irreverent campaign,this outlawed spook terroristcontinued hammering horse nailsthrough Barbie headsand setting them aflame.Barbie never told Black girlsthey were beautiful.She never acknowledgedtheir breathtaking Negritude.She never told themto possess their own souls.They were merely shadowsclutching the edge of her mirror.Barbie never told Black girlsthey are beautiful.not in the ghetto eveningsafter double dutch,nor in the integrated suburbs,after ballet class.

Comments

  1. Leslie AnukwuSeptember 1, 2018 at 11:38 AM

    I didn't participate much in the discussion, but I would like to say, I loved your poem choice and also where the class went with it. I feel as though everyone who isn't white (in America), wishes they were white. At some point, I remember that I did too. I think for me it was being in mass surrounded by a bunch of white kids, worshiping a white god (Jesus, who shouldn't even be white if you think about it🤔). I feel like if we want to change this view of the world, it should start with the children. In the case of Barbies make black ones, hispanic ones, etc. and in the case of entertainment, I think we should give women more leads, because the few we do have on television deliver their lines better than 95% of the white males that are paid $20mil per movie. I'm kinda spit balling here, but tldr: give minorities more representation so they feel like they're important too.

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  2. UnknownSeptember 3, 2018 at 5:58 AM

    So I wrote my post about your poem so if you want to check out that and see if there's anything you'd like to add, go ahead! But I loved that you chose this poem. It was my favorite of the three because it clicked. Something occurred to me while reading this that didn't come to mind during class. People mentioned that their father hated the dolls, but two things I thought of as important questions, 1) Where did their father come from? Like background. 2) What if their father wasn't present? I didn't really have a father present much, so that makes me wonder if there would've been protest to me playing with the dolls. That's just something to think about I guess.
    Also, you say that by saying its a man instead of a woman, Hemphill is making a point and I agree. Men generally have more control in society, and if men stood up for women's rights and issues, the world might be different. How we view ourselves might be different. Those are just some thoughts :)

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  3. IzzySeptember 8, 2018 at 11:11 PM

    I didn't really say that much in the discussion when you initially read this poem, however I really think this poem is an extremely important choice. While I as a white male will never truly understand the pain that this poem expresses, I can say that I agree with the point that it is making about minorities needing a million times more representation and especially minority women. Also I can say that I was pretty surprised at how often the father figure was brought up in opposition to the barbies. However the involvement of men in this poem shows how important it is to get everyone involved in social change even if they aren't directly benefiting from it, and especially (like with men) if they are primarily the ones with power.

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  4. Tue DoSeptember 10, 2018 at 6:57 PM

    So actually Mr. Mitchell cut me off to move on to the next poem but what I wanted to contribute to the discussion was my experience with wanting to be white. Disclaimer: I'm not black so I don't know how relevant this is but the discussion really got me thinking about my own experience so it's my comment anyway. I'm pretty sure I really wanted to be white when I was in elementary school. In hindsight I don't really remember being too upset, but having a name people made fun of sucked a lot. I hated the name "Tue" back then and even now I sometimes lowkey want some easier-to-pronounce name, but the older I get the more I sort of reclaim my identity. Even the entire soccer team mispronouncing my middle name makes me feel kinda special in a weird sort of way. It wasn't just my name either, my two best friends were white and every time I was over at their houses I kinda felt out of place. Conversely, I was never that excited about having them over because I worried I would weird them out. I also was pretty insecure about my skin color, and I'm sure that's relatable for a lot of minorities, though. I guess this is kind of a different thing, but even when I wanted to be Asian I didn't want to be Viet. I only knew one Viet kid my age and he didn't go to the same school as me, and often I would see a bunch of Chinese or Korean dudes hanging together, talking about house parties that I knew I had no chance of being invited to. This all sounds pretty depressing now that I'm rereading it, but it doesn't really bother me now so I guess it's okay. But I think I was much more fortunate to be in the position I am surrounded by acceptance more or less. The poor girls described in the poem are not.

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