Racial Disparity and Perseverance

“Mother to Son” is told from the perspective of someone who has faced a lifetime of racial inequality and the challenges unique to the Black experience in 20th-century America. Through an extended metaphor, the speaker describes the two paths she has seen through life: her own, and the “crystal stair” of the privileged white elite (Line 2). Crystals are a symbol of ease, luxury, and wealth. The implication is that those taking this path through life have a smooth and even enjoyable, covetable journey uninhibited by the sorts of obstacles Black people face every day. In contrast, the speaker describes her own path through life as a plain staircase laden with hazards: stray tacks and splinters in which the very path itself has turned on her. Because crystal can’t splinter in the same way, these are obstacles that would not even occur to...