Langston Hughes sticks to Walt Whitman in the next two lines when he states "Eating in the kitchen/then." The last two lines of this poem symbolize equality. The kitchen in this poem symbolizes the larger picture of American society and its inequality. This is why, in this poem, sitting in a kitchen is such a huge ordeal. The next two lines are contextually much more significant in the landscape of this poem in response to Walt Whitman. The next few lines read "Besides/They will say how beautiful I am/And be ashamed." This line from the poem is a huge knock against Walt Whitman. What Langston Hughes told Walt Whitman was that he actually forgot to mention slavery and African Americans in "I Hear America Singing" and that if he were alive today he would be ashamed to do it.