Week 3, Question 3

In “Commitments,” the speaker begins with the announcement "I will always be there", and yet later he says "I am the invisible son.” How can these two statements be reconciled?
In the poem “Commitments” by Essex Hemphill the statements “I will always be there”, and “I am the invisible son” are reconciled in knowing some background on Essex Hemphill’s sexuality. From reading the introduction the reader is given the knowledge that Essex is a homosexual black man. Knowing this gives the reader a lot of insight into his dilemmas at family gatherings. Family gatherings usually include couples and their children. Single people often feel ostracized at such functions, and homosexual single people all the more because the lifestyles of both these demographics is not fitting a square peg into a round hole. Essex describes several holiday settings that fit the stereotypical family traditions “set for Thanksgiving/a turkey steaming the lens” l 22-23 (p.553). Yet he describes his arms as empty in all of the family photos. Empty of a child that would make him fit into the heterosexual world and empty of a lover that would make him fit into the homosexual world. He attends these family functions but he is invisible to his family because they do not know the true him.