I had to refocus the direction for my blog so many times. I changed the focus a little bit and decided to challenge myself and attempt a more academic blog. I am glad that Dr. Santos was able to read my proposal and sense that I was not into my first nor second choice. This time and hopefully the last time, I am going to write a blog about Black Literature. I love reading and it’s a shame that my first choice was not about that. African American literature explores the issues of freedom and equality in the United States, along with further themes such as African American culture, racism, religion, slavery, a sense of home and more.
Langston Hughes: The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
In the short essay, Hughes criticized the young African American artists in their “urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.” As they are moving up the social ladder, they are becoming standardized in in how they looked, dressed, acted, sang and worshiped. They read white books and white magazines, watched white films. The turn their nose at everything Negro and they are ashamed of their own blackness. They don’t want to be too spiritual because “white best.” They don’t like jazz because it’s “too Negro”. Hughes refer to jazz has a tom-tom beating in the Negro soul.
“the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world…the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile.”
Those people according to Hughes can’t be true artist because they have not climbed the racial mountain.
“…for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself”.
Hughes urges the artist to discover their true self and realize that they are “beautiful” and that they were able to new forms of arts such as blues and jazz. It is not about pleasing a group of people nor be a Negro poet but the desire to be a poet. To be able to look at the African American heritage and absorb the culture; a culture filed with history.
So what are some of your favorite poems by Hughes? One of my personal favorites is I, Too, Sing America. I actually first heard this poem in a woman's lit class and it just seemed to be inspirational to me. Maybe while you're looking through African American Literature, you use some Zora Neal Hurston. Her short story "Sweat" may appeal to you too if you like Hughes. Great story.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading my post. I am going to be writing about other authors. Next week as a matter of fact, my next blog will be about some of her work.
ReplyDeleteHughes was spot on about practically becoming the white man in order to be treated like one. I'm a book nerd myself which reminds me of that blog in class about the girl acting snobby because she reads. Ha. I'm looking forward to your next post. Sadly, we didn't read a lot of African American literature in school.
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