My 12th Grade English Teacher Ruined ‘A Raisin in the Sun’
Using a classic piece of Black literature to reinforce racist ideas
Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun is widely regarded as “one of the greatest works of 20th century American literature.” It’s a story about a Black family from Chicago attempting to reconcile their competing dreams after coming into some money following the death of the family patriarch.
When it was time for my 12th grade English class to read the play, there was no discussion of the economic precarity of working class Black families in the 1950s. Much less a rumination on the significance of Hansberry’s social commentary about the demands to conform to white society in order for Black people to achieve social mobility.
Instead, what I got in my predominantly white AP English class was a painful lesson in respectability politics.
My English teacher grinned as though she were bringing to life the greatest lesson plan of her career.
Out of all the books and plays we read that year, A Raisin in the Sun seemed, to my middle-aged white female teacher, to be the most appropriate for reading aloud. No sooner had we started, with a blond boy and notable…
