Examples Of Struggles In I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

The Darkest Struggles When Maya Angelou wrote the book “I know why the caged bird sings” she was speaking from her very on soul and pouring out the deep feelings she had felt when she was younger, all the way up until she was a young adult. African American women will always have more on their shoulders more than any other race especially white women will. No one really knows if all of the discrimination started because of the color of our skin or the attitude that lingers in our voice. Only thing that is known is that African American women are mistreated, abused, and cheated out of the rights of living their lives. When one is judged and are told what they are going to do and what they will be in life, it can cripple someone but not
Young Maya witnessed everything and every piece of discrimination first hand. Living in Stamps, Arkansas, she dealt with more than just racism and segregation, she has issues with her identity. In her mind if blonde hair was beautiful and she was not anything more than a nappy headed black girl living in a nightmare that he wished one day she would wake up from. Stamps was so segregated that the existence of white people was almost unreal. Because she was an African American the white folks treated her different, and humiliated and refused her service almost all the time knowing that there wasn’t anything that anyone could say or do to change the way she was treated. Maya was insecure about herself. She had ratty hair, pass me down clothes from white women, and she just did not feel pretty in her own
There is always something to say; in Maya’s case, she had a brother to make her feel better. “Oh Mizeriz Coleman, how is your son? I saw him the other day, and he looked sick enough to die “from the uglies.”(Angelou 21) Bailey would be sure to avenge his sister by insulting the people that would offend her. Maya saw her brother Bailey as the greatest person in her world. Bailey was her only other sibling and she enjoyed that. She was big , had the skin color of shit and had black steel wool hair; however Bailey was small , had velvet black skin and had black curls down his back. Bailey did not see that when he saw her, he thought she was just as beautiful and he loved her just as much as she loved him (22). Bailey could count on very few punishments for his horrible behavior, because he was the pride of the Henderson/Johnson family (23). African Americans were discriminated against by whites and harsh comments were always made. Maya had gotten a horrible toothache and needed to see a dentist. Grandma had people on a list that owed her and one was a white dentist. When they got to his office he said “Annie, you know I don’t treat nigra, colored people”