Summary
The poem begins with the unidentified first-person speaker confronting a door that an unknown other person has firmly shut in the speaker’s face. The speaker feels extremely discontent, but has the necessary courage and grace to stand straight and proud in the face of this rejection. The speaker walks down the street, feeling the pavement burn beneath their feet as he internally writhes with anger. The speaker ironically describes himself as a “chafing savage,” imagining how the racist people living on this street may view him. The speaker also ironically describes this street as “decent,” indicating that it is a well-manicured and organized place.
Analysis
Taken together, and given the context of the poem’s author, the first seven lines indicate that the speaker is describing racism and exclusion using the metaphor of a white house with a shut door. The poem’s title is essential to establishing this metaphor—the title is directly related to the first line, as it suggests that the shut door which the speaker confronts is the door to the White House. This title could be taken literally to refer to the presidential residence. The editor of the journal which published this poem, The Liberator, feared that this was the case and in fact mandated that the title be changed to avoid political persecution of McKay. However, as McKay himself has commented, the “white house” in the poem does not literally or solely refer to the White House as the actual site of the president. Rather, the White House is both a metonym and a symbol. It is a metonym because the literal White House is not only a physical location but a mecca of power and political authority in the United States. When this poem was published, the White House had only been occupied by white men, reflecting the racism endemic to political life in America. Furthermore, the White House—along with Congress and state governments—was responsible for laws and policies that discriminated against Black people. The White House is thus a powerful metonymy for the broader political exclusion of Black people. More broadly, the “white house” is a symbol for the white houses—and cultural, political, and economic institutions—which excluded Black people. These “houses,” with their “shut” doors, represent the various spheres from which Black people were excluded. The image of a white house with shut doors brings to mind the practice of segregation during this time period—under the federal laws of the United States as well as state-level codes, Black and white people were forced to attend separate schools, eat at separate restaurants, and take separate transportation, among other exclusions. When the speaker confronts the shut door of the white house, he is symbolically confronting the many places from which Black people are excluded in American life.
In addition to its use of symbolism, the first half of the poem is also notable for its tone—the speaker navigates between a tone of extreme anger and frustration on one hand, and a more optimistic tone affirming his own ability to withstand the exclusion he faces on the other. The speaker uses physical language and symbolism to convey the extent of his anger—his internal pain feels as “sharp as steel,” the pavement slabs “burn” him as he walks down the street, and his own internal organs seem to “rend,” or tear into pieces, due to the anger he experiences. By contrast, the speaker does not use symbolism to describe his own resilience. Instead, he uses concrete, direct diction which clearly conveys the exact attributes that he possesses—“courage,” “grace,” and pride. By mixing symbolic depictions of anger and direct descriptions of his own fortitude, the speaker navigates between speaking out against exclusion and celebrating his own power.
Finally, Line 7 exemplifies the poem’s use of irony. The speaker describes himself as a “chafing savage” and the street from which he is excluded as “decent.” This is in fact the very opposite of the scene that the speaker describes. The word “savage” refers to brutality, viciousness, and uncontrolled negativity. This perfectly captures the extent of violence and evil that racism in America unleashed upon Black people at this time. At the same time, the word “savage” was a racial epithet hurled against Black people. By referring to Black people as “savages,” white supremacists justified segregation by suggesting that Black people were not civilized and could not engage in political life. Thus, the speaker mockingly hurls this epithet against himself to highlight the negative views that those in the white house(s) hold of him. The speaker transmits the racist views of those who exclude him, using irony to demonstrate their internal justifications for their racist behavior. Similarly, the speaker mockingly describes the street as “decent,” when its inhabitants are in fact acting in contravention of basic “decency” by shutting out the speaker. “Decent” is used here not only in the moral sense (to act in a way that is good), but also suggests that the homes along the street are of adequate quality and are well-manicured. The word “decent’ itself points to the system of racism and economic exclusion in America, as white people are able to buy and inhabit high-quality homes, while Black people were “redlined” and excluded from high-income or “decent” neighborhoods.
