N°21_Vol.6_02

Introduction: The place of African Americans in the U.S. has always been problematic.  If one considers just how these people have been named over time, it becomes clear how dangerous the Black question is in America. Naming them African slaves from colonial era to early 1800s, Colored in Antebellum era (1800s), Negro or Afro-Americans from late 19^th to early 20^th century, (New) Negro in Harlem Renaissance era (1920s-1930s), Blacks during the Civil Rights era (1960s-1970s), African-American and African American during late 20^th century (1980s-1990s), Blacks and African Americans in the 21^st century (2000s-today), unmistakably demonstrates their cultural identity and power, and reflects their resistance and resilience. Abu Abarry (1990) noted that “Since their enforced and brutal emigration to North America about 400 years ago, African-Americans have forged rich and dynamic literary forms that today have become an important and unique aspect of American literature and culture” (p. 379). Their cultural contributions ranged from “the spirituals, the blues, and the work songs to the sermons, proverbs, and tales. The literary significance of these forms seems to surpass anything written by African-Americans until modem times” (p. 380). Other forms include poetry.

Phillis Wheatley and Claude McKay’s voices, despite being separated by at least two centuries, confronted American slavery and racial violence, questioning the standard of Western Christian morality. Christianity, which is supposed to preach divine love, salvation, and redemption of all mankind, has rather been used as the moral foundation and the spiritual cornerstone to launch a vast terrorist attack on the African continent, a phenomenon called the transatlantic slave trade. Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from Africa to America” and McKay’s “Enslaved” plainly challenged Western Christianity’s claim to moral superiority and its complicity in the enslavement of millions of African people and the murder of many other millions of Black lives. 

Although William Long (1993, as cited in Boren, 2004) views Wheatley as a traitor to her race by suggesting she is “a bird that forgets its native melody and imitates only what it hears” (p. 39), and “Because McKay’s tendencies were more akin to the European tradition and experience, he was a misfit at a time when blackness was being celebrated” (MeSeur, 1989:299), both poems were no complacency to slavery. MeSeur also observed that Claude McKay, “Regardless of his thoroughly British orientation, emotionally and literarily he never forgot his blackness” (307-308).  

Has the US ever been a real Christian nation? Should real good Christians take part in the enslavement of others? In this regard, this paper contends that the United States has never been a Christian nation. It seeks to analyze how Wheatley and McKay have exposed the incongruity of Christian notion of “salvation” in contrast with the cruel reality of bondage in their poems. To conduct this analysis, Afrocentricity and stylistics are used as theoretical framework. Afrocentricity re-centers the narrative from an African perspective and agency, while stylistics highlights how rhetorical devices as well as other literary techniques are used to construct meaning. Firstly, this paper elaborates on the hypocrisy of Cristian West. Then it focuses on the analysis of Wheatley’s poem. And the last part scrutinizes McKay’s text.