Read the excerpt from the poem "harlem" by langston hughes. what happens to a dream deferred? does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? * * * maybe it just sags like a heavy load. or does it explode? according to the poem, the speaker feels that the relationship between whites and african americans is happy and equal. tense and unequal. strong but calm. unhappy but peaceful.

According to the poem, the speaker feels that the relationship between whites and African Americans is TENSE AND UNEQUAL.

The poem belongs to the artistic wave called Harlem Renaissance, which exposed the conditions of life of the African-American population and their constant struggles for equality, due to the segregation suffered on the part of the white population.

The poem speaks of the relationship between both groups sagging, with the probability of exploding; that is to say, it tells us that it is not stable and calm, but on the contrary, tense, unequal and dangerous.

explanati“there were many such dangers, in which the odds were all against them. their children were not as well as they had been at home; but how could they know that there was no sewer to their house, and that the drainage of fifteen years was in a cesspool under it? how could they know that the pale-blue milk that they bought around the corner was watered, and doctored with formaldehyde besides? when the children were not well at home, teta elzbieta would gather herbs and cure them; now she was obliged to go to the drugstore and buy extracts–and how was she to know that they were all adulterated? how could they find out that their tea and coffee, their sugar and flour, had been doctored; that their canned peas had been colored with copper salts, and their fruit jams with aniline dyes? and even if they had known it, what good would it have done them, since there was no place within miles of them where any other sort was to be had? the bitter winter was coming, and they had to save money to get more clothing and bedding; but it would not matter in the least how much they saved, they could not get anything to keep them warm. all the clothing that was to be had in the stores was made of cotton and shoddy, which is made by tearing old clothes to pieces and weaving the fiber again. if they paid higher prices, they might get frills and fanciness, or be cheated; but genuine quality they could not obtain for love nor moneyon: