This introduction does an especially good job of introducing the need to discuss the poem in terms of race by citing a reader whom she disagrees with or at least offers a limited view of the poem. The writer justifies the existence of her essay by making her essay part of a larger conversation about the poem.

"The Little Black Boy" by William Blake was published in 1789 within the collection, Songs of Innocence. It was written at a time when slavery was still legal and debates were just starting to heat up on the subject, both in Europe and in the United States. The poem's central character is a young Negro child who remembers what his mother told him about God, the sun, and the difference between blacks and whites. Many readers have described the poem as being "not racist" for several reasons. Poetry critic Helen Lowe says that centrality of the poem is the sun, and the light that it gives. She goes on to say that "Blake was not a racist so the poem was not intended to be as such." (quotationsabout.com) In Americans' Favorite Poems, there is added commentary from the readers who submitted their favorites. One elderly lady says the poem reminds her of farming in the south and evokes good feelings, a high school teacher says the poem is about a mother's voice representing optimism and the future, and a teenage boy says it is about forgiveness.  However, these responses remind me of a quote by American poet John Ashbery: "Remnants of the old atrocity subsist, but they are converted into ingenious shifts in scenery, a sort of 'English Garden' effect, to give the required air of naturalness, pathos and hope" (Ashbery, Three Poems, 1956). So, we need to look more closely. Even if the poem is not intended to be racist, race is certainly one of its themes. Anytime there is mention of racial difference in a text and a need for reconciliation of sorts, it cannot be dismissed altogether. Andrew Bennet explains that every text that brings up the condition of racial otherness "articulates how that otherness is constituted – both absolutely other, non-human, bestial, and at the same time an integral element in what defines racial sameness" (209). For instance, African roots and blackness, or Englishness and whiteness. He goes on to say that essentialism figures into the equation because how a person perceives humanity affects their idea of otherness. "Western Humanism necessarily defines itself through terms of race, by constructing a racial other which then stands in opposition to the humanity of the racially homogenous; racism is, before anything else, the delusion of essentialism. Some critics argue that the Western discourse of colonialism is constituted by the other subject – by alterities of race, color or ethnic origin" (210). So William Blake may not have been hostile toward Negros, and although he may be attempting to create sameness in this poem, he does exactly the opposite. The fact that he is a white man writing about a black slave boy, speaking for him and creating the boy's thoughts, constitutes more of a racial difference than a sameness, and exposes the thorns in the "English Garden."