my dream about being white

Music and dancing are traditionally linked. The word “music” (Line 1) opens the poem, but the speaker does not start “dancing” (Line 17) until the last line. This may suggest that the speaker has a promise or an action that she can’t fulfill because she is distracted by this “dream of being white.” Music and dancing are often associated with joy and freedom. While the speaker “dream[s] of being white,” she cannot enact that freedom. When the speaker “wakes up /dancing” (Lines 16-17), it signifies an emotional shift from the world of dreaming to the world of being awake: She has shed old beliefs that paralyzed her. Rejecting false beliefs and accepting herself allows her to feel joy and freedom. It fulfills the promise that she can respond to the music that started the poem.

The body parts that the speaker focuses on are the “nose” (Line 7), “lips” (Line 8), “behind” (Line 9), and “hair” (Line 4). These characteristics can distinguish Blackness from whiteness, the female body from the male body, and the African American female body from a white female body. For the speaker, presumably an African American woman, these body parts would be subject to intense scrutiny and would determine how a white-dominated society evaluates her humanity.