Summary Of The Change By Tony Hoagland

Since Tony Hoagland wrote “The Change”, there have been copious amounts of praise and attacks by whites and African-Americans and tagged as a racist piece of art. When first reading this poem, offense will be taken and thoughts of racism will be brought to your attention. However, Hoagland’s intentions were not race. His intentions were to cause discomfort when reading this poem. Hoagland uses syntax to make readers feel offended and the narrator in the poem is not a racist but actually an observer. The unnamed speaker started with a memory of watching a tennis match between a “little European blonde” and a “big black girl from Alabama”. He admits to the readers that he sides with the white player because they are of the same race “my tribe”