we wear the mask
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Dunbar
We Wear the Mask
Paul Lawrence Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio. Both his parents were former slaves who had escaped from Kentucky. In 1891 he was the only Negro in his graduating class at high school. Oak and Ivy 1893, his first volume of poems, was published at his own expense while he was an elevator operator. Most of the copies were sold to tenants in the building where he worked. After writing his second book Majors and Minors Dunbar became a popular lecturer, reading his poems both in the United States and England.
In one of his most famous poem's "We Wear the Mask", he describes the harsh reality of the black race in America and how they hide their grief, sadness, and broken hearts under a mask for a survival strategy towards whites. Myself as an Afro-America I can see Dunbar point of view however, as a human being I can see Dunbar was not just describing one racial group, but the world as a whole. "We Wear the Mask" is a very powerful poem written to tell us about the way people hide their true feelings. It tells how the human race wears a smile even though inside it is crying tears of pain...