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Dinner Guest: Me
This poem was written by Langston Hughes, and it is about a black man who is having dinner with white people who are "ashamed" of being white, or so they say. The poet is trying to show the differences between the races, and how people say things they don't mean when they are trying to be fair and equal. Nobody is ashamed of being white, but it makes them feel better and more self-righteous to say that to a black man when they have dinner.
The narrator of the poem is the black man who is having dinner on Park Avenue in New York. The people he is having dinner with are rich, because there is lots of "fine" food and wine, and they live on Park Avenue and eat dinner at eight o'clock. That is how the poet shows that the people are wealthy and are trying to do the "right" thing by sharing their dinner with a black man. They are asking him questions because they really do not understand the problems blacks face at all. He says he is the "Negro problem," but that is their term for it, not his. They are part of the problem, but they cannot see this. They think they are being open by having a black man to dinner, but that is not really true. They are just showing their prejudice and their ignorance because they "demurely probe in polite way the why and wherewithal of darkness USA" (Hughes). They live their white lives on Park Avenue and have a black man to dinner, and so they think they understand the "Negro problem."
The narrator feels the way he does because he knows that this dinner, and others like it, will never solve the "Negro problem." It's the white people that have the problem; the black people just want the same opportunities the whites have. He felt this way because he knows that he will not change any minds or make any difference at this dinner. He says, "Solutions to the problem, of course, wait." He knows that the dinner really means nothing, and nothing good will happen because of it. He knows the "Negro problem" will continue, and that the whites, who are clueless about it will never understand it is them who are the real problem.
References
Hughes, Langston. "Dinner Guest: Me."
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