Dreams

The theme of race and gender persists throughout the poem. In a sense, the speaker belongs to two marginalized identities: She’s a woman and Black. The marginalization the speaker experiences as a Black person is explicit. The speaker says, “[B]lack people aren’t / suppose to dream” (Lines 3-4). The two lines are short—a total of six words—but significant. They point to the deep-seated racism in the United States.

In America, Black people were bought and sold as slaves. After 1865, the United States abolished chattel slavery. Lethal racism continued through duplicitous laws—known as Jim Crow laws—that made Black people vulnerable to harassment and wanton violence. The racist laws intended to keep Black people down and to make them think they had no business dreaming of a better future.

The speaker's younger self isn’t aware of these racist norms, so her race doesn’t prevent her from dreaming. She dreams of becoming a singer in the Raelettes. The existence of the Raelettes and Ray Charles complicates the theme of race. During the mid-20th century, Black people like Charles and the Raelettes could dream and achieve success—they could occupy the limelight. Conversely, race could turn the dream into a nightmare. In Longreads, Tari Ngangura writes,

The music industry of today is incredibly corrosive and toxic, but it was even more so for Black musicians in the middle of the twentieth century, who dealt with nothing but no-good managers, unfair contracts, and stolen music credits (Ngangura, Tari. “Lover’s Blues: The Unforgettable Voice of Margie Hendrix.” Longreads, 2 Sep 2020).

The poem never explicitly names Ray Charles, but Giovanni does name Marjorie Hendricks. The main image in the poem revolves around the lead singer of the Raelettes. The speaker imagines being her. She sees Hendricks “grind / all up against the mic / and scream” (Lines 8-11). Hendricks ties gender to race. Like the speaker, Hendricks is a Black woman. Hendricks experienced alcoholism and heroin use, and she died in New York City before she was 40. As a Black woman, she experienced marginalization due to both gender and race. Ngangura says,

[T]he number of Black women uncounted and unnamed in music history makes it clear that this wasn’t only a question of sobriety. It was also about opportunity and a perverse lack of care for the artists whose mental and physical health were secondary so long as money continued to be made (Lover’s Blues).

When the speaker grows up, she realizes fame isn’t that great of a dream. Hendricks’s struggles symbolize the vulnerability of stardom for Black women. The speaker juxtaposes two types of Black women: There’s Hendricks, and the speaker. The speaker offers a “matured” (Line 14) and “sensible” (Line 15) model that people can follow. Black women don’t have to thrust themselves into the exploitative spotlight to be a “sweet inspiration” (Line 19). Living a practical, thoughtful life can serve as inspiration too.