La Bourgeoisie Noire

Frazier, Edward F. "La Bourgeoisie Noire." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 173-81. Print.

Well, we have another nature documentary on that elusive animal known as “the Negro” to read through. I’ve seen documentaries on the Discovery Channel about meerkats that were more interesting than this trash. Firstly, the author supposes that society is below him. The people he is talking about are discussed with the lexicon of an outside observer free from prejudice, which he is anything but. Secondly, who cares? He does not make a point, but rather goes on about the intricacies of black society and how no one likes anyone else. The world is not the way Frazier seems to make it out to be. Although he preempts much of what he says with the proclamation that no ethnic group is socially homogeneous, he then goes on to argue exactly the opposite; all black businessmen are too white to care for their poorer brothers, all field workers are too ignorant to want anything more, and so on. No point is made other than the author is himself bigoted, and yet does not realize it.

Those who attempt to derive generalizations from a society are always going to fail. Why? Because society is an abstract concept that has become a blanket word for individuals who, through one means or another, become grouped under one label. It is not a physical thing, nor is it something that has one definition or one lexicon. Ask three different sociologists what a society is and, aside from the dry textbook definitions, you will receive three very different pictures. Frazier, in his essay, has absolutely no concept of this. To him, societies are unbreakable and absolute, which is why his essay is a load of garbage that, frankly, should not be included in this anthology.

With Langston Hughes in the USSR

Patterson, Louise T. "With Langston Hughes in the USSR." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 182-89. Print.

This little essay was interesting on a few levels, but foremost because of the controversy that arose between the two camps of the group in Russia. It wasn’t informative because there was a schism – who could spend months with a small set of people and not incur some harsh feelings? – but because of the way the public reacted to the differing statements released by each group. Rather than publish and focus on the statement by Hughes and his group that attested to the poor quality of script and the inability, therefore, to create a movie in any reasonable length of time, the American newspapers decided to distribute the statement that the Russians had betrayed African Americans by not making the movie. They turned what was an innocently bad product into a political statement, and the media ate it up.

While I am in no way surprised that the media of our country decided that the Russian “betrayal” was more news-worthy (besides, who actually believes that the News is news?), I am surprised that they sided with the African Americans. The position the media networks were put in is this: either portray the Russians as hospitable, good people who simply were unable to fulfill their promises to a group of blacks, or to turn the Russians into an evil country of bigotry that is too racist to make a movie concerning Africans. Taken in line with the state of the country during this time period and its rampant racism and bigotry, the hypocrisy is overwhelming. Apparently, though, the Russians were more evil than the blacks – at least to the news networks.

The Task of Negro Womanhood

McDougald, Elise J. "The Task of Negro Womanhood." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 68-75. Print.

In an effort to be as un-PC as I can be (I must be in a mood today…), I want to start this post by making an observation. That is, I find that the most enjoyable, wonderful and interesting people in the world are overweight black lesbians. This is, of course, just a generalization, but I find more often than not that people who fall under these descriptions are just as I’ve described, and more often so than people who do not. The reason behind this, I believe, is that they are in such an ostracized position of life that there is no other defense than to be pleasant. I’m sure there are those who despise the world and everyone in it because of the prejudice inherent in any of the four categories these things entail (homosexuality, obesity, female, and black), but the people who make the most of it seem to be the brightest shiners in the world.

The reason I bring this up is because the article, which was so incredibly void of emotion, was basically trying to get at the same idea that I’ve dived into. Because it was written like a nature documentary from the 60’s, however, it comes off as sterile, lacking the emotion necessary to really get the point across. That point is, as I’ve already gotten at, that discriminated people have a capacity for love and compassion that far surpasses those who fall into the majority. This may be a somewhat optimistic focus on what is, in reality, a somewhat difficult position in life, but I’m bored of the pessimism our anthology oozes. Pessimism, on that note, is becoming more and more the reserve emotion for artists who have nothing left to talk about. Pessimism is easy; happiness is the true challenge. Where is the joy in life? Where is the life in life? The more I read the assignments for this class, the more I am aware of how academic it all is. Academia is fine in its place, but doesn’t anyone have any raw emotion anymore? The fine-tuned and politically correct dissertations of men and women who don’t even live the lives of the people they attest to be are not only void, but they’re boring. I’m sure this article fulfills some necessary spot in the canon of Harlem Renaissance literature, but for God’s sake, why can’t this topic be given its rightful due? David Lewis should ask someone with some fire in their soul to rewrite the thing to make it say what it needs to say in a way that does it justice.

The Negro Digs Up His Past

Schomburg, Arthur A. "The Negro Digs Up His Past." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 61-67. Print.

I have a strong position on the common-place focus on rectifying the wrongs of past slavery that often is met with the rebuttal of racism. I am (or try to be, anyway), as any decently educated person, not in the least bit racially motivated; that does not mean, however, that I am going to keep quiet when absurd notions concerning race are upheld in the face of reason. Affirmative Action falls under this category, and I consider it to be more racist than any other modern “rectification” of past wrongs (or whatever justification you want to give AA). The absurdity I am talking about in this post is the incessant focus on revisiting the wrongs of slavery and this notion of repayment by whites to blacks for it. Of all the most ridiculously stupid things, this must take the cake. Pain, suffering, and emotional compromises are not passed on hereditarily. My grandmother may lose an arm, and I still keep both of mine; why should the issue of slavery be any different? To claim that white people owe modern-day blacks for the slavery that their remote ancestors endured is so incredibly shallow and unreasonable it boils my blood. No, these people who are demanding retribution were never slaves, and, unless they are exceptionally old, neither were their parents. They never lived the life of a slave, never endured the hardships of those poor people, and therefore have no right to claim that whites owe them anything. In the same vein, the whites of today were never slave-holders. Neither were many of the parents of white people today, or their grandparents. To say that whites who are now generations removed from slaveholders owe anything to blacks who are now generations away from slavery is picking at a wound in an effort to milk it for all it’s worth, and it is, frankly, disgusting. If true equality – something everyone should strive for – is to become a reality, the people who refuse to let this false idea of “repayment” go need to, for lack of a less emphatic phrase, shut the Hell up.

This article deals with this idea very properly. Rather than constantly and sickly revisit this “repayment” for slavery as the pinnacle of black history, Schomburg points to all of the black art, artists, and recognizable people/things from farther in the past. Bringing the focus off of inequality and putting it on the wonder and creativity of a people not only is the true path to actual equality, but it is far more educational and interesting. And, too, all of this isn’t to say that the writers and vocalists who did center their art on inequality aren’t worthy of integration into the curriculum of black history, but rather that the focus must be on the person and their cause, and not as a cheap method of guilt-tripping.

I’m sure that my views are controversial (as I’ve said, those who don’t bother to listen to my argument just assume I’m a bigot), but I am very sure about my reasoning. The best analogy I can make between the incessant focus on slavery in black history as a tool of creating guilt is, as I’ve already pointed out, one of picking at a wound and refusing to let it heal. It doesn’t help anything, and, if you pick it long enough, it is bound to get infected.

Arna Bontemps Poetry

Bontemps, Arna. "Arna Bontemps." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 224-26. Print.

I am going to focus on The Day-Breakers rather than its longer associate. Golgotha is a Mountain is a fine poem, certainly worth exploring (especially when considering all of the different possible notions the symbol of the mountain represents – I am partial to replacing “mountain” with something very simple, like “idea” or “thought”), but The Day-Breakers is more in-line with the other works we’ve studied in this class.

The immediate connection between this poem and Returning Soldiers is obvious. The imagery of war, battles, fighting, death and so on are all too common in the poetry found in this anthology. However, I believe that Bontemps adds something that I have yet to find in any of the other similarly-themed works. Instead of doing the equivalent of literary whining (or rallying, if you want to be progressive about it), he has a very lone notion of something boarding nostalgia hidden in his words. The first two lines:

We are not come to wage a strife
With swords upon this hill,

are not very open to vast interpretation (i.e. the meaning is fairly static). Bontemps is simply stating that the black race did not barge into America looking for a fight, nor did they barge in at all. Now, the next two lines are where that nostalgic sadness comes in:

It is not wise to waste the life
Against a stubborn will.

I’m not sure why I’ve decided this is nostalgic – pessimistic is more fitting to the theme, however “pessimistic” does not do justice to the feelings these lines evoke. I believe that the “stubborn will” is referencing racism, or perhaps whites in general. Firstly, he uses the word “waste” as an absolute; there is no recourse or opening for any “if’s” or “maybe’s.” He sees rebellion as futile, and ultimately a willing of one’s own death. However, he does not necessarily condemn “wasting the life,” but merely notes that it is not wise to do so. The use of the word “wise” is, now that I’m working through it, why I’ve labeled this poem nostalgic: it isn’t really nostalgic in the traditional sense of the word, but in a more spiritual eventuality. Again, spiritual may be leaning in the wrong direction (perhaps try substituting in a word like “empirical”… which I think is too harsh and scientific for what I’m trying to get at here). “Wise” is the word of an old man who has given up on the fire of youth. Again, he does not condemn the fire (which is necessary to foolishly waste one’s life), but merely notes that it isn’t the best of ideas. I can picture Bontemps as an old man having his say to his grandsons who are readying themselves for a mob-riot against racial discrimination: he understands the fire that drives them, yet he has lived long enough to have grown beyond it. I’m sorry if this is unclear; I’m having trouble polishing it down.

The second to last line:

Yet would we die as some have done.

reaffirms what I’ve already stated. The old, removed man understands that the fire of youth drives people to do things that lead to their deaths (i.e. is “unwise”), and furthermore he accepts that it happens. He may even accept that it happens not because of the specific exemplum of black discrimination, but as a facet of any individual’s life. Bontemps cheats himself in this line by letting in the word “some.” He is removing what could have been a very effective generalization and diminishing its effect, and I sort of wish he hadn’t. A more proper word (at least for my own reading of this poem) would be something very simple, such as “others”, or even a pronoun like “he”. It removes the implied doubt in assertion inherent in the word “some” (at least as it is being used here).

The final line turns what I’ve labeled nostalgia around and offers a small, distant glimpse of hope:

Beating a way for the rising sun.

What must be remembered when viewing this final line, however, is that Bontemps is referencing an “unwise” person dying for their cause. Again, this goes back to what I was saying before and adds to it: Bontemps understands and accepts the fire of youth, even to the point of pseudo-suicide, and furthermore he accepts and promotes the reasoning behind doing so (“the rising sun” being used as symbolism for a “brighter tomorrow” (oh the cliché!)). So the question I am left with is this: who, really, is unwise? Obviously, Bontemps believes that fighting for a cause when death is a given is unwise, but then how does he reconcile his acceptance of fighting and advocate the cause as the brighter tomorrow he believes it to be? Ultimately, Bontemps is calling himself a fool here, and I believe he did this on purpose. In a very circular kind of way, he has concluded that fighting is foolish, but fighting is also necessary despite its foolishness. And, now that I’ve reached this conclusion, I think that the title makes a lot more sense.

Mule-Bone

Hurston, Zora N., and Langston Hughes. "Mule-Bone." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 729-38. Print.

I think that the irony of this play and the surrounding circumstances are phenomenal – the kind of thing you should only be able to find in fiction. And yet, as our text and other sources point out, it seems to have taken place in reality. The irony I’m talking about is, of course, that a play about overcoming intra-racial differences caused one of the largest and most fatal real-world splits intra-racially, at least as far as the Harlem Renaissance was concerned. Although the split between Hurston and Hughes was superficial and trivial in the larger scope of the Renaissance, it still managed to divide up blacks in Harlem into two camps, one supporting either of the play’s two authors. Perhaps it was fated to happen, if you believe in that kind of thing; a play that tempts the status quo intra-racially is, itself, the heart of an intra-racial divide. I’m not sure how many other ways there are to say this, but I can’t get over how sad and hilarious these circumstances are.

Now, with that aside, I thought that Mule-Bone was very ordinary compared to some of the other things we’ve read in this class, and certainly ordinary in comparison to other pieces by Hughes and, especially, Hurston. I am, actually, somewhat surprised that Hurston would have been involved in its writing. Her stances on equality as a perceived reality in her writings are somewhat at odds with this in-your-face pseudo-propaganda on intra-racial divide. Hughes, on the other hand, seems to fit the bill pretty well. Although, from what I’ve read, I would have expected a higher level of obvious pride in the work than what it offered. To me, Mule-Bone felt half-hearted, like the kind of thing a professional writer might doodle in their spare time and then forget away in some folder somewhere.

The moral of Mule-Bone, that the once-divided blacks can overcome whatever it is that is dividing them (I like the subtle commentary of using a woman instead of white society/racism – sexist much?) is fine and a bit overdone. The two once-divided black men reunite at the expense of the obstacle (symbolism 101) and order is restored to their lives. As I said, this is hardly the kind of work I would have associated with either of the authors, and I’m a bit upset that the ultimate divide between the two was over something so… plain.

Dust Tracks on a Road

Hurston, Zora N. "Dust Tracks on a Road." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 142-55. Print.

Two things caught my attention in this excerpt. The first is the extreme parallel between Zora and Helga Crane, from Quicksand. Both moved to New York in a sudden, almost impulsive act and arrived with almost no money. The fact that this happening appears twice in literature from the Harlem Renaissance (that I’ve read, anyway) leads me to believe that it was a commonplace thing to do. Even if it is a bit foolhardy, it feels like the people who believed in Harlem really, truly believed in Harlem – no if’s and’s or but’s about it. And, of course, this says a lot about the social milieu of the time. That people were willing to uproot themselves and travel to Harlem with barely a dollar in their pocket is a statement in and of itself; that it happened over and over again is an even stronger statement. The amount of hope that the Renaissance emitted must have been enormous; what else could have attracted people so fully?

The second thing that caught my attention was the reference to Du Bois’ assertion that the Racial Mountain prevented writers from expanding their creativity to topics outside of the race problem. Zora is obviously well aware of this, but for reasons other than the ones put forth by Du Bois. Du Bois seemed to support the idea that Harlem Renaissance writers wrote about the race problem (I could be wrong about this – his article about it could very easily have been written in jest), whereas Hurston wanted to branch out from the topic into themes of her own. Her claim that there are no inherent differences between the races brought back the story of the black doctor in The Fire in the Flint who attempted to live as if race was not an issue. I admire the conscious thick-headedness as a means of overcoming discrimination (and I’m being honest; that sentence came off as sarcastic, but it wasn’t). I appreciate Zora’s philosophy on life, and now that I’m discussing it I wonder what she would have thought of her works appearing in a compilation of literature from The Harlem Renaissance.