Commentary on Race in “the white troops had their orders but the Negroes looked like men” Anonymous 11th Grade

In Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “the white troops had their orders but the Negroes looked like men”, Brooks writes from the perspective of white troops in preparation for a war who starts to question the rationality of maintaining a segregated mindset when they see the black soldiers. Brooks wants to communicate to the readers that the racial integration of war causes the white soldiers to shift from maintaining the belief that white and black people are meant to be segregated to doubting that belief.

Brooks begins by establishing that the white soldiers are told to maintain these segregated beliefs by using an end-stopped structure within lines 1-3. The first line where the soldiers had ‘supposed their formula was fixed’ is followed by an effective pause with the use of a period in the end. The first line completes its thought before transitioning to the next two lines where the soldiers had obeyed instructions to devise a ‘type of cold, a type of hooded gaze’ ending with another period. The consistent use of end-stopped lines gives them a sense of order and rigid structure. The rigid nature of the consistent end-stopped lines mirrors the close-minded perspective of the white soldiers while also highlighting their focus and...