African-American History in the Words of Aunt Hager

“The young ones what's coming up now, they calls us ole fogies and handkerchief heads, and white folks' niggers cause we don't get mad an' rar' up in arms like they does cause things is kinder hard, but honey, when you gets old you now they ain't no sense in getting' mad an' souring yo' soul with hatin' peoples. White folks is white folks, an' coloured is colored, an' neither one of t'em is bad as t'other make out. For mighty nigh seventy years I been knowin' both of em, an' I ain't never had no room in ma heart to have neither white nor colored. When you starts hatin' people, you gets uglier than they is – an' I ain‘t never had no time for ugliness, cause that's where de devil comes in- in ugliness! (129-130).” By Langston Hughes “Not Without Laughter” 

With the chosen paragraph from the book “Not Without Laughter”, Aunt Hager talks to Sandy about her thoughts on anti-racism with dialect. From this passage from the book just in her talking, we can see three major themes that connect with history; racism, anti-racism, and dialect. These three themes also show the true realism of African American people in the 1910s. Thus we can see a little part of the history here.

Hughes’ inclusion of the dialect in his book has a cultural meaning. When we -readers- read this dialect through the characters’ voices, we learn about how African Americans spoke at that time- and perhaps still-. Including a way of talking is always helpful for us because we can analyze and learn a community or history even through their speech patterns. She says “White folks is white folks, an’ coloured is colored”, and this view of life is a great example of anti-racism. She is not a racist person, she finds it ridiculous. People who have always been exposed to racism know how unnecessary racism is in life, we can see this in most African Americans. The bad thing about being used to this situation is not being able to react anymore.

When we look at the historical way, we can see some people were not angry with the white ones like Aunt Hager. Maybe being this positive for life is associated with the title of the book; Not Without Laughter. Whatever happens, they always find a way to smile at the end of the day, and this is another major theme of the book and the reality of African American people.

On the other hand, Sandy shows reactions to racism and to Aunt Hager, he cannot bear Aunt Hager’s positive comments on racism and white people. That is why Aunt Hager makes this speech to Sandy. To show him hating people brings you more ugliness. With this paragraph from the book, we can understand that in the history of African American people, there were people who were racist, there were people who reacted to racism like Sandy, and there were people who did not react to white people’s racism like Aunt Hager.