The speaker addresses "you" several times in the poem, "Still I Rise." Who is meant by "you," and how can we tell?

The speaker in the poem is a black woman, either an emancipated slave, or, more likely from the date of the poem, a descendant of former slaves. We can tell this because of her reference to being sexy, to dancing with "diamonds at the meeting of my thighs," and to the "huts of history's shame," that is, institutional slavery. She also calls herself "a black ocean." Knowing who the speaker is helps identify the "you"...

The speaker in the poem is a black woman, either an emancipated slave, or, more likely from the date of the poem, a descendant of former slaves. We can tell this because of her reference to being sexy, to dancing with "diamonds at the meeting of my thighs," and to the "huts of history's shame," that is, institutional slavery. She also calls herself "a black ocean." Knowing who the speaker is helps identify the "you" she addresses in the poem.

It is evident that the "you" is someone who has oppressed the black race. She says the "you" has revised history to record things that are not true about the speaker, or more broadly, about the speaker's people. The speaker believes the "you" she addresses wants to see black people broken and is upset by their "sassiness." The people being addressed speak to and look at blacks with unkindness and even hate them. Taking all these clues from the poem, we can assume that the "you" being addressed is a white racial culture whose ancestors practiced slavery and who still harbor prejudices against blacks. The "you" can apply to a racist society, such as the deep South in the 1960s and even beyond, or it can apply to any person who is racist toward blacks.