"I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong."

This poem is all about sticking it to the man. The speaker's basically being told to disappear himself to the kitchen because company's arrived and he's black… and you know, black people just aren't supposed to be at the table with company. Ugh. Totally unfair of course.

But the speaker isn't the type to just sit back and accept the status quo. Nope, nope, nope. The whole situation just makes him more determined to do the very things that he's been told not to do. Like appearing in front of company.

Perseverance and determination. That's what this speaker is all about. And he shows us those traits when he tells us, "But I laugh, / And eat well, / And grow strong."

Note that "but." It's super key to the turnaround in tone for the stanza, and the whole poem.

You'd think that someone who's been told to disappear because his skin color makes him inferior to others would be a little bitter. However, instead of resigning himself to negativity, the speaker intends to "laugh." More than that, he intends to "eat well" and "grow strong."

Why? Because that would be the sweetest form of revenge, wouldn't it? To be able to return one day as a healthy adult, equal in class and stature to white Americans, and sit at the table?

There's more to this poem than just that all-important "but." Take the way the lines end and run into each other. Like the first line—see how it ends with a period?

That's what lit people call an end-stop. In this case, the end-stop is the speaker's way of establishing a fact. He's being straightforward about the fact that he is indeed "the darker brother."

So, we know immediately that the speaker's skin color is an issue in the poem.

Then the second line runs into the third line, almost as if the line is following the speaker as he runs into the kitchen. That technique, by the way, is called enjambment. Which means here, we have an enjambed line that is followed by three end-stop lines.

This interpolation of different line endings toys with the meter of the poem. The reader experiences some fast-paced movement and then some more measured, rhythmic statements. Like, "But I laugh, / And eat well, / And grow strong."

The speaker of the poem is clearly a guy who's willing to be patient. He plots out his approach to ending his era's racism before he springs into action.

We're betting this dude will have the last laugh.