Dinner guest experiences and social dynamics

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."