The Emperor Jones

O'Neill, Eugene. "The Emperor Jones." Ed. David L. Lewis. The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 311-17. Print.

I’m not really sure what to say about these little snippets from O’Neill’s play, other than the obvious. Without reading the entire thing, a lot of the sections were out of reference and therefore I couldn’t get much in the way of symbolism or metaphor. The one point I was able to pick up on, however, was the black men chasing down another black man. Based on what I know about Eugene O’Neill (I’ve read The Iceman Cometh), my guess is that most of the characters in this play are exaggerated caricatures, intended to portray an absurdity. Given this, I’m going to assume that Jones is portrayed to be what typical black Americans view as the intellectual black (although Jones doesn’t really come off intelligent). I say this because of the implied meaning behind having a group of black natives chasing down a black man from America (or thereabouts); O’Neill is trying to say that black Americans and black Africans are not of the same culture and therefore not, by default, compatible. This is, of course, a statement against the likes of Marcus Garvey and B.T. Washington, who (as far as I can tell) never questioned the native African’s acceptance of western blacks back into their culture.

On the flip side, the native blacks chasing down Jones are aided and followed by two (presumably) white men. This could imply exactly the opposite of what I said initially; perhaps Jones represents the “greedy” black man out to take over Africa while the tribe aiding the two white hunters (or whatever they were) represents more complacent blacks who are willing to succumb to what white men tell them to do. I’m unfamiliar with O’Neill’s stance on racism, or if he was racist himself, but I can assume from these short little pieces of his play that he thought the Africa for the Africans movement (as well as Garvey and Washington) was unfair or absurd.

More on Marcus Garvey

Ovington, Mary W. "On Marcus Garvey." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 29-33. Print.

After reading Ovington’s article about Marcus Garvey, my views on the man have changed somewhat. I had originally pictured him as an intelligent man who was simply misguided towards what I feel is a disastrous and hypocritical route. After reading Ovington’s article, I now feel that Marcus Garvey was something far worse: a stupid egomaniac. I don’t use the word “stupid” here for emphasis, as a child might, but for its literal meaning – I believe that the man was an idiot who had no idea what he was doing.

In Ovington’s own words, “business training had not been a part of Marcus Garvey’s education”. (31) Why, then, in all the ways of the world, did Garvey decide to create a corporation around his plan to form an African empire? And, given that he did, why did he not seek guidance in business and finances? Or, at the very least, why didn’t he pick up an Accounting 101 textbook and at least know that liquidating debts accrued prior to incorporation with profit made after incorporation is a serious crime? How is it that so many self-made ignorant people are in such high positions in this country? It drives me crazy. What’s more, Ovington points out that Garvey had no real knowledge of Africa, and never specified a location in which to house his imaginary new empire. How can you conceive of a new country without even knowing the location in which it will be housed?

Not only was he ignorant and chose to remain so, he was racist – perhaps as racist against whites as many whites were against him. What kind of man, black, white, or whatever color, administers a policy that refuses to accept help from willing people of a different race? According to Ovington, Garvey would not accept donations or support from white people, nor would he let whites into meetings of his organization. The obvious message here is a sort of “you pushed me so now I’m gonna push you”. It’s childish, and, furthermore, it’s destructive. If Garvey really wanted to make an African empire, he had to have known something about global economics, or that when you have your own country you are going to need to have good relations with other countries – particularly countries that are far more wealthy and powerful than you, even if you don’t like their color. But no, Garvey didn’t do anything to help his position in the eyes of white people, instead choosing to alienate himself and his organization.

I also called Garvey an egomaniac, and again I did not use the word merely as an insult. The description of him riding into Liberty Hall clad in gold and brass on the back of a horse while flanked by his “knights” and “nobility” is disgusting. Garvey was not a proponent of racial equality – he was a proponent of himself, and nothing more. I can honestly say that, after reading this article, I am glad his promises were hollow; an African empire led by Garvey would have become a huge, horrible problem that the rest of the world would have had to have cleaned up.

Marcus Garvey

Garvey, Marcus. "Africa for the Africans and Liberty Hall Emancipation Day Speech." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 17-28. Print.

These two pieces – an essay and a speech – are the first two in this sequence of readings that I found myself disagreeing with. Although Marcus Garvey obviously cares very much for his fellow black men and women, I do not think that his solutions to the problem of racism in America are solutions at all, but rather a way to bypass the problem. In essence, he is advocating running away instead of staying and fighting for equality. I understand where he is coming from, and that many people shared his views, but it still seems like the cowardly way out of a bad situation.

The concept of an African Empire is not one I disagree with, however. As I read Garvey’s essay I kept wondering what ever happened to this proposal; Africa today is so poor and desperate, yet Garvey speaks of it as if it were the next up-and-coming world power. I honestly wish that Africa was a wealthy, great country; watching videos of starving children during commercial breaks on TV is heartbreaking, and I wish there was more I could do than send a couple of dollars every month. What I do not wish for, and what I am happy did not happen, is all of the African Americans abandoning America in favor of building up an African empire. Not only would this have injured present-day America’s diversity and culture, it would have left the movements for racial equality in stasis – without people of color present, of what use is a fight for equality? Other than an academic interest, it would have been abandoned, and racist inclinations would be far more prevalent than they are today. Yesterday in class, during the lecture on women’s rights, I kept thinking about how far we’ve come in such a relatively short amount of time; the class about racial and gender inequality is being taught by an African American woman, and not a single person in the classroom thought twice about it. Had Garvey’s ideas about retreating the black race to Africa come to fruition, there is no chance that Professor Winand would be teaching this class, or that the class would exist at all.

Further, Garvey’s statements about not allowing elitist black people into the African empire struck me as wrong. Although, again, I can understand his sentiments – he didn’t want his proposed African empire to be ruled by a product of white society and, once again, pushed down to second class status – it almost felt like he was arguing for ignorance. Without some African intellectuals, where would an African empire be today, had it arisen? My guess is the Africa of today is a close representation of what it would be today had it become Garvey’s African empire. I actually was confused during lecture yesterday when the discussion of B.T. Washington noted that he was against education African people in academia; I thought that Garvey and Washington were the same person, until I looked up Garvey’s name again. Their philosophies are so similar, and so oppositional in my mind, that I inadvertently lumped the two men together.

As for Garvey’s short speech, I felt it didn’t say anything new or interesting, but was rather an attempt to get black people mad and ready for a fight. In no way can I see the productive side of a speech that demonizes white people and divides the races even further. Garvey is hypocritical – he’s advocating black superiority over the ignorant white men in a way that, were one to replace “white man” with “black man” and vice versa, would sound much the same as the mantra of leagues such as the KKK. I understand that he was mad and wanted a fight for his equality, but such a method is simply not the way to peace. Becoming your enemy only makes you worse off. Men like Garvey are the reason racism is still around to this day; instead of pointing out our differences and using them to generalize the “other”, we need to focus on our similarities and how we can better help each other understand life.

"Returning Soldiers"

Du Bois, W.E. B. "Returning Soldiers." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 3-5. Print.

Everything I said about “If We Must Die” applies to this essay as well. However, I was startled by how Du Bois expressed himself. I read the article before we watched the movie on him in class and thought it was well written, but asking for trouble. Then, the biography of him painted this picture of a quietly active, thoughtful man who didn’t want to push too many buttons, but rather to attain equality through peaceful protests and discussions. The tone of this essay is exactly the opposite; although it is obviously addressed to his fellow black Americans as a rally to join him in the fight for change, he had to have known that more whites than blacks would have ended up reading it. While it would surely inspire the want to join Du Bois in much of the black population, it would just as surely have inspired hate and fury in many of the whites who did the same. He outright calls the hate crimes against blacks the actions of a “shameful land” of “ignorance” (4), and them’s fightin’ words, especially to a group of people who are looking for a reason to throw a punch.

I have to say, though – I like Du Bois a lot more after reading his essay in the context of his biography rather than just by his biography alone. A man of great intellect is nothing if he isn’t a man of great motivation – and, further, a man who does what he says he’s going to do. He obviously meant what he said, and I have no doubt that he lived his feelings on black equality. Sometimes to get things done, you have to run the risk of stirring up some hot blood, especially if it means boiling up equally hot blood for your own cause. Although I’m sure Du Bois was intellectual enough to know the useless stupidity of physical confrontations, I can’t help but feel that he wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity to sucker-punch some of the more radical white supremacists, given the right circumstances. And for that, I respect him; he wasn’t just a guy that wrote about equality in some offhand, academic way; he wrote from his own anger, and it translates to paper in all of his intended meaning.

"Black America"

Johnson, James W., and David L. Lewis. "Black Manhattan." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 34-35. Print.

As horrible as it sounds, I thought an emphatic “Good” when I read up to the point of this essay where the black family with the physician father shot into the crowd that was attempting to force them out of their home. The absolute arrogance and disgusting attitudes of the white people trying to force a black family out of their new home simply because they were black boils my blood; how can anyone, of any color, be that completely pompous? The only analogous group that I can think of today would be zealot Christians, and even they tend to respect the law. Not that it would have made it any more acceptable, but the fact that the black family was well-off even furthers the racist sentiments behind the mob attack – the angry people couldn’t have even argued that they wanted the black family out of their neighborhood for fear of their property values declining. No; it was an act of out and out racism, and I completely believe that, had I been in the shoes of that family, I would have fired more than just a single shot into the crowd.

Those thoughts aside, the first few paragraphs of the essay speak highly of the white population of Manhattan prior to the influx of black families. The fact that black families were able to purchase so much property, live together in harmony, and escape prejudice and racism is fantastic, and surely held a large role in the following years of the Harlem Renaissance. Had the black men and women that became the voices of black Americans not been able to settle into their own lives independent of their white neighbors, the Renaissance would not have happened. For such an outpouring of literature and arts of such a black-specific culture to occur, those men and women needed a community in which they felt safe enough to write and do some of the things they did. Without the safety offered by the well-off Harlem area to black Americans, which of the now-famous writers would have dared publishing protests of white treatment against blacks? Very few, and those that did would have met similar fates as the physician family.

I suppose that, as sick as it is, any kind of movement for radical societal change is going to come up against the thickheaded conservative roadblock, and mob outbreaks are always a factor. The same type of situation has happened plenty of times during other major changes: the women’s right movement, the movement for Irish equality, and today we’re facing horrible crimes as the gay rights movement picks up speed. It’s pathetic that the people who advocate violence in the name of their selfish beliefs don’t learn from their parents’ generation of mistakes… maybe the world would be a better place if they did.

"If We Must Die"

McKay, Claude. "If We Must Die." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 290-90. Print.

This short little poem goes a long way towards illustrating the feelings of many of the people involved in the Harlem Renaissance, especially with those of B.T. Washington. McKay, like Washington, is more interested in taking a stand as a group of proud Americans who, like their fellow white Americans, have just returned from war victorious for their country. He is obviously tired of being treated as a second class citizen whilst he and his brothers have gone off to fight, kill and die for their country just as hard as any man. Moreover, though, he is angry and bitter than his fellow black Americans seem to be willing to roll over and let the white society treat them as if they were “like hogs” (1). By using very literal language with purposefully transparent metaphors and similes, McKay tries to appeal to the black American society’s want of an uprising against their second-class treatment. He continuously reminds his fellows that “if [they] must die” (meaning if they must die in a war and if they must be defeated by society [die being used both as a metaphor of oppression and in the literal sense]) they should not do so without fighting to the end (1). The sentiment is extremely common in war literature – don’t give up without a fight!

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit depressingly, McKay admits that he feels that the black movement towards equality is ultimately impossible: “We’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, … dying, but fighting back!” (13-14). His intent isn’t the hopeful, perhaps impossible notion of absolute equality, but rather a statement of black pride. He doesn’t want his race to roll over and take it, so to speak, but to go down fighting. In his paraphrased words, what have [they] got to lose? (12). Death (again, metaphoric death as well as literal death) is an inevitability, and McKay realizes such. The saying has been recycled countless times in the history of war, my favorite being (oddly enough) from the movie Galaxy Quest: “Never give up; Never surrender!”