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When I pulled up Google and the usual results, I wasn't surprised to find out that Claude McKay was in fact somewhat of a politician and had never actually been in a war. McKay's call to bravery amidst the lingering threat of eventual defeat, the call to the honor involved in once such "doomed resistance", is too idealistic to what those in the actual war would think. This is where Owen's "Dulce et Decorum" differs with McKay's "If We Must Die"; both are for war, yet Owen is more realistic and addresses how politicians know nothing or next to nothing of realities of war.

*To tie in real life, it can be inferred a certain amount of people are angry about the Iraq War due to the politicians bluntly and sloppily covering up discontent, disagreement and/or opinion of the soldiers by the obviously staged conversation between President Bush and the soldiers:
http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/26955/ (more progressive)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1014-03.htm (more factual).
Anyways, my opinion aside...

However, the status of McKay as not a solider doesn’t invalidate his opinion of view; McKay was indeed fighting a war, but a war of a different type. Growing up in the early 1900's (born in 1890, the cusp of two different centuries), racism in America was as rampant as ever, with it simply being adjusted for the outlawed practice of slavery. Around, 1912 - 1914 he enrolled at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and met face-to-face with racism. "If We Must Die", while effective as a view of warfare, it also metaphorically viable for the resistance against racism and bigotry. This is evident especially when in the poem, he emphasizes honor, and how the "doomed resistance" would long be relevant. Historically speaking, without the many events, no matter how small they were, in the past concerning civil rights and racism, progress may not have happened either as slow or as fast as it has and/or will happen.

* "If we must die, let it not be like hogs" -
Saw more so as a description for the way blacks were treated by whites.

* "...then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!"-
I saw this more pertaining to warfare, not so much racism as people who are racist tend to stay that way. However, the concept of people being racist simply because it is an accepted norm would apply to eventually honoring and/or perhaps learning to like the people they once hated.

It was also a slight surprise (although not so much so in hindsight) that McKay was a socialist and became editor of The Liberator, as well as writing for various left wing journals. Again, drawing the connection between McKay's experience of the war with racism and actual warfare, Winston Churchill actually quoted "If We Must Die" later on during World War II. Interestingly, he was sympathetic to communism during his stay in Europe (England, Russia and Africa), and this was during the 1930's. It would've been interesting to see McKay's thoughts on McCarthyism during the 50's and 60's, and parallels he might've drawn from racism and McCarthyism.

Going back to what "doomed resistance" McKay spoke of, it is fascinating to wonder if he had also lived long enough to see the Civil Rights Era, in which he was instrumental to help spark the flame upon which it would arrive (James Johnson said that McKay, "was one of the great forces in bringing about what is often called the 'Negro Literary Renaissance.'".) After such re-visiting and re-hashing of the Civil Rights era , it was most refreshing for me to see of the era right before it, the one that was almost in a way preparation for The Civil Rights era.

*** Note: Please see this link: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/life.htm
for the source of quotes and background on McKay.


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