I Dream A World

"I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn.
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind--
Of such I dream, my world! -Langston Hughes"

This poem is outstandingly a vision of the future. Although this future seems so far away, it's truly not. The meaning being Langston Hughes' words may seem complex but it's not. The premise of his poem can easily be understood with the knowledge of his background.

Langston Hughes grew up in the Burroughs of New York, or what is called Harlem, during the time where racism was as common as speaking and dreams for a brighter future, for people of color, were just an imaginative idea in your head. He grew up right in the middle of New York, where white people surrounded the whole perimeter. Back then no one, and I mean no one, wanted people of color anywhere near the new and rich upcoming of New York. Although we try to imagine what it's like to experience racism, we truly haven't. To experience such a passionate hate that makes you want to cower, to crawl in a hole, to feel like you're less important than dirt.

Our generation can only begin to ponder what that's really like. Maybe even more if you're considered different, whether that's determined religiously in a community or standard wise in school. To be honest we're all different, and that's what makes us the individual people we are. That's the point that Langston Hughes is trying to make that it doesn't matter what your race, religion, gender, sexuality that we're all after just one goal in life. That is to live this life as best as we can and hope at the end of it we made a change.

My dream for the world is that we can all make peace. I know that sounds so cliché, but it's honest. I mean we all define ourselves on who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. Did anyone think that we all seem to believe in a god. It may not be your god or their god, but we all seem to have this general idea of god. We all want to end up in peaceful place at the end of our lives. Just like Langston Hughes my dream is a world we can come together and try to live with others' differences. To make this dream come true will take a lot, but it's not impossible. The small differences we can make will make this dream come a little bit closer.