Langston Hughes opens his little treatise by recounting a personal contact with a black poet and this motif of personal relation informing his thought process would be repeated multiple times in this work. Through his personal conversation he could deduce the subconscious wish to be more white. The poet expresses his discomfort with racial labelling an act that if followed through would lead to a relief of racial responsibility and a demolition of racial sensibilities.
The need to dispel one’s black identity would be accompanied by a disconnect from collective memory and heritage, how can one be a great poet when he does not have access to the immeasurable storage of his lineage, what collective authenticity would he draw from? The inclination toward whiteness and a subconscious need to bleach blackness is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America.
The artistic “soul” resides in the connection between individual and tradition. The tendency to forego racial identity is not surprising when we fit such blacks like the poet mentioned earlier into a socioeconomic context. Hughes examines the background of the poet.
A middle-class, suburb dweller, neither enjoying or suffering the plenty and perils of the extreme i.e. rich and poor. He largely orients himself after seeing the favourable condition “whiteness” enjoys in the society, whiteness is therefore equated with goodness and moral values. Blackness on the other hand is synonymous with trouble and criminal activity.
The influx of negative image of black criminality/urban/hood life is the foremost representation of blacks and it is not hard to see what kind of impact that would leave. In such a case it becomes difficult to see the beauty of one’s own race, because there is never teachings on how to do so.
He learns however to either ignore his blackness or feel shame at the aspect of his blackness not suitable to Caucasian standards. It is for this reason African Americans would be willing to pay for a white form of musical entertainment but completely ignore theirs. There is a need to refine black tastes till they’re one with the herd of European sensibility.
Picture perfect in America allows only for Europeans on the frame and this psychologically conditions African Americans to reach for their height, whiteness. Success is synonymous to white. The compounding pointers towards a white consciousness pose a very high mountain for the would be racial artist.
Despite this bleak investigation there are the less intellectual counterpart of these blacks, they are the low-down folks that makes up the masses. They are comfortable enough in their blackness and hence have no desire to reject it. They embrace the loud joyfully rhythms of their spiritual and Jazz.
It is this group that provides a glimmer of hope as they are promising enough to provide a truly great Negro artist. The other group while possibly capable of generating a true Negro artist, he would have to escape the restrictions places upon him by his people.
He can then discover the great field of untampered materials at his disposal for his art. Subjects and thematics are overflowing within the black community, enough to provided writers a well of sufficiency for ideas. A writer could examine, the dynamics of the relationship between whites and blacks in the society, the more assimilated blacks not white enough to be admitted into the white society. These contents should be infused with author’s racial identity.
The politics of recognition widens the already existing racial mountains. Negro artist rarely get recognition till it’s accorded to them by some white critic. It is a clear case of a prophet is not honoured in his home.
This has been the trend but with new cultural attention, the future of black art looks promising. Hughes points out the delicate position of the Negro writer sandwiched between white standardization and black exploitation.
While the blacks pushes for respectable representation, the white clamour for stereotypical representations. While all these seem like a setback for the Negro literature, in its own ways this literature is actually flourishing, this is why Hughes commends this sect and urges Negro theatre.