Johnson, Helene. "Helene Johnson." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 276-78. Print.
Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem once again addresses the issues of blacks disagreeing with the major players of the Harlem Renaissance, in this case a bit hypocritically. Helene Johnson accuses the talented tenth of aspiring to be white and failing due to their hatred for whites while using prose and language fitted to the tenth. Perhaps she was filled with self-hate, but I’m going to wager that she was simply blind to her own position in society.
Johnson would have fit well with people like Garvey, but perhaps not for the same reasons. Garvey was interested in abandoning America, and I could see a side of Johnson that would agree. However, Johnson seems more interested in forgoing the efforts by many blacks to be white and simply be black. The problems this mind-set encourages are fairly obvious, particularly if she was interested in racial equality (which I don’t actually see any evidence for in this selection of her poetry), but also a bit more realistic than Garvey’s. Perhaps she would fit in more with the likes of writers like Walter White, who assume black identity without the anger and resentment towards whites. Obviously it is possible, but it does seem that many black activists of the time period were dead-set on the race issue and how to correct it. I’ve already discussed this in my other posts, so I won’t elaborate much further than to say that the Harlem Renaissance was misguided in its focus on racial equality and would have been far more successful if it had been about the art, not the politics. I believe that Helene Johnson recognized this, as did Zora Neale Hurston – which is probably why I enjoyed her works more than any of the others in this anthology.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Georgia Douglas Johnson Poetry
Johnson, Georgia D. "Georgia Douglas Johnson." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 273-75. Print.
The third poem in this section, Black Woman, brought back something we read earlier in the semester, The Closing Door. The notion of not having children because the world is a bad place to live is not exclusive to blacks, but it has been brought up several times now in this anthology and is worth taking a deeper look at.
The theme of infanticide takes on an assumption of innocence for unborn children, which in turn denotes that any evil comes from the hand of man. To cut off a child’s life before it can encounter men is, in a way, saving it from the horrors of life, and I believe it is a bit immature. Life is difficult and, to put it bluntly, crappy, and to assume that your child needs to be protected from the nitty-gritty of living is naïve. I’m not arguing that the blacks didn’t have it bad in the early twentieth century, but I do have trouble believing that life was so utterly terrible for blacks that they would kill their children before giving them a chance. I suppose it is the result of hopelessness, but how can someone give up on change altogether?
The poem by Johnson was interesting because it takes on the situation of a pregnant woman who is ignoring her unborn baby’s movements. The woman begs the child to stop trying to be free from her womb because she cannot stand the thought of it coming into a hard life. She also begs, however, for the child to remain silent so she doesn’t have to turn a deaf ear to it – something that, ultimately, is saying that she wishes the child were not conceived. It is a bad position to be in; a kind of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario that, apparently, led to some mothers killing their children. Perhaps this can be used as a way of understanding just how terrible some people did have it – what would it take to bring someone today to consider infanticide based on social circumstances?
The third poem in this section, Black Woman, brought back something we read earlier in the semester, The Closing Door. The notion of not having children because the world is a bad place to live is not exclusive to blacks, but it has been brought up several times now in this anthology and is worth taking a deeper look at.
The theme of infanticide takes on an assumption of innocence for unborn children, which in turn denotes that any evil comes from the hand of man. To cut off a child’s life before it can encounter men is, in a way, saving it from the horrors of life, and I believe it is a bit immature. Life is difficult and, to put it bluntly, crappy, and to assume that your child needs to be protected from the nitty-gritty of living is naïve. I’m not arguing that the blacks didn’t have it bad in the early twentieth century, but I do have trouble believing that life was so utterly terrible for blacks that they would kill their children before giving them a chance. I suppose it is the result of hopelessness, but how can someone give up on change altogether?
The poem by Johnson was interesting because it takes on the situation of a pregnant woman who is ignoring her unborn baby’s movements. The woman begs the child to stop trying to be free from her womb because she cannot stand the thought of it coming into a hard life. She also begs, however, for the child to remain silent so she doesn’t have to turn a deaf ear to it – something that, ultimately, is saying that she wishes the child were not conceived. It is a bad position to be in; a kind of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario that, apparently, led to some mothers killing their children. Perhaps this can be used as a way of understanding just how terrible some people did have it – what would it take to bring someone today to consider infanticide based on social circumstances?
Claude McKay Poetry
McKay, Claude. "Claude McKay." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 289-98. Print.
It was interesting to return to Claude McKay’s poems at this point in the semester. If I remember correctly, I commented in some length on If We Must Die very early on in the semester, most likely in that detached academic frame that I lambasted in my last post. I want to briefly revisit the same poem and then bring in a bit on one of the others that caught my attention.
If We Must Die is much as I said in my earlier post, sans the lack of emotion. What really drives this home, and what really makes it stand out among McKay’s poetry, is the raw anger it emits. McKay isn’t commenting on the plight of the blacks, he is telling – ordering – them to get out of their homes and start kicking some butt. It is probably the rebel in me leftover from my teenage years, but McKay is spot on here. He is, very succinctly, telling his fellow blacks to stop pouting and do something, and I don’t think I can find anyone who won’t agree. There are so many bad places to belong to in society, and far too many of them do not have the daring to stand up for themselves. McKay saw this in the blacks of the 20s, and I see it in the gays of the 2000’s. Nothing, really, has changed other than the surface presentation of those who are being discriminated against. I don’t pretend to be an activist myself (they tend to annoy me, actually), but there is something very warm to be said about people who can put themselves out there and fight for a cause.
Now, the other poem that caught my attention in this section destroys much of the credit McKay had in my mind. The poem is The Tropics in New York. Perhaps it is the Garvey-esque idealization, or perhaps it is the whinny self-absorbedness that If We Must Die speaks so directly against, but this poem is just terrible. I’m not sure which of the two was written before the other, but something must have happened in McKay’s life to sever his courage and cause him to resort to the kind of useless crying he so adamantly opposed. Further, the short intro to this section of the anthology mentions that McKay eventually moved to the USSR. I don’t think that running away from one’s problems is a bad thing (rather, I’ve been outspoken about the ridiculous stupidity of machismo our society places on “sticking to your guns”), but I do find it hard to reconcile some of the things McKay wrote about with his defection. I can only assume that he moved to the USSR not as an act of retreat from the segregated and racist United Stated, but as a safe haven from the pretentiousness of the Harlem Renaissance with which he was so often associated and so openly ridiculed.
What is there to be said, then, about a man who can face racism but can’t bare his own fellows? I think that this theme is overlooked in much of the literature we’ve discussed in this class, but it is one of some importance: what about the blacks who did not agree with the Renaissance? Just as many gays today do not follow the Human Rights Movement or attend gay pride parades, many blacks of the 20s did not do anything for the Renaissance nor even endorse it. I suppose the fact that the Renaissance is discussed as an all-encompassing event is an artifact of the way we record history – no one of the time period cared about the dissenters, and therefore today we do not learn about them.
It was interesting to return to Claude McKay’s poems at this point in the semester. If I remember correctly, I commented in some length on If We Must Die very early on in the semester, most likely in that detached academic frame that I lambasted in my last post. I want to briefly revisit the same poem and then bring in a bit on one of the others that caught my attention.
If We Must Die is much as I said in my earlier post, sans the lack of emotion. What really drives this home, and what really makes it stand out among McKay’s poetry, is the raw anger it emits. McKay isn’t commenting on the plight of the blacks, he is telling – ordering – them to get out of their homes and start kicking some butt. It is probably the rebel in me leftover from my teenage years, but McKay is spot on here. He is, very succinctly, telling his fellow blacks to stop pouting and do something, and I don’t think I can find anyone who won’t agree. There are so many bad places to belong to in society, and far too many of them do not have the daring to stand up for themselves. McKay saw this in the blacks of the 20s, and I see it in the gays of the 2000’s. Nothing, really, has changed other than the surface presentation of those who are being discriminated against. I don’t pretend to be an activist myself (they tend to annoy me, actually), but there is something very warm to be said about people who can put themselves out there and fight for a cause.
Now, the other poem that caught my attention in this section destroys much of the credit McKay had in my mind. The poem is The Tropics in New York. Perhaps it is the Garvey-esque idealization, or perhaps it is the whinny self-absorbedness that If We Must Die speaks so directly against, but this poem is just terrible. I’m not sure which of the two was written before the other, but something must have happened in McKay’s life to sever his courage and cause him to resort to the kind of useless crying he so adamantly opposed. Further, the short intro to this section of the anthology mentions that McKay eventually moved to the USSR. I don’t think that running away from one’s problems is a bad thing (rather, I’ve been outspoken about the ridiculous stupidity of machismo our society places on “sticking to your guns”), but I do find it hard to reconcile some of the things McKay wrote about with his defection. I can only assume that he moved to the USSR not as an act of retreat from the segregated and racist United Stated, but as a safe haven from the pretentiousness of the Harlem Renaissance with which he was so often associated and so openly ridiculed.
What is there to be said, then, about a man who can face racism but can’t bare his own fellows? I think that this theme is overlooked in much of the literature we’ve discussed in this class, but it is one of some importance: what about the blacks who did not agree with the Renaissance? Just as many gays today do not follow the Human Rights Movement or attend gay pride parades, many blacks of the 20s did not do anything for the Renaissance nor even endorse it. I suppose the fact that the Renaissance is discussed as an all-encompassing event is an artifact of the way we record history – no one of the time period cared about the dissenters, and therefore today we do not learn about them.
James Weldon Johnson Poetry
Johnson, James W. "James Weldon Johnson." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 279-88. Print.
I had a problem reading these poems in the context given by the short introduction to Johnson. The fact that the man was an agnostic but wrote almost exclusively about God and Jesus doesn’t sit particularly well with me, especially because he does not use the concepts of God or allusions to the Bible as literary tools, but as direct references. As I went through the section of poems in our anthology, I couldn’t help but begin to feel that Johnson used Christianity, despite his own disbelief, as a cheap win-all card kept up his sleeve to gather more attention to himself and his poetry. By doing this, he is not only cheating his readers into believing that he has a meaningful connection with their deity, but himself as well. Part of being an agnostic requires a suspension of resolution – something that is difficult to do in our society. For Johnson to focus so singularly on Christianity creates an irreconcilable position between his agnosticism and his work; you cannot have your cake and eat it too, so to speak.
The poetry itself, too, I found bland and uninspired. There is a kind of academic detachment in the writings of those who profess to be atheistic or agnostic and yet attempt to write from the point of view of a Christian (or whatever religious follower). I know I have this problem too; I write a lot of fiction, most of which with a somewhat heavy (and biased) view against organized religion. In order to do this, I like to show what I see to be the good in religion by writing characters that are religious and attempt to work their beliefs into the life of an otherwise sound character, while simultaneously giving my writing a platform for religious discussions. The problem with me, as well as with Johnson, is that taking on the religious mind and attempting to write therein is impossible, and it shows. Something about the forced level of acceptance is transparent, which in turn makes anything else being said of less or no value.
I had a problem reading these poems in the context given by the short introduction to Johnson. The fact that the man was an agnostic but wrote almost exclusively about God and Jesus doesn’t sit particularly well with me, especially because he does not use the concepts of God or allusions to the Bible as literary tools, but as direct references. As I went through the section of poems in our anthology, I couldn’t help but begin to feel that Johnson used Christianity, despite his own disbelief, as a cheap win-all card kept up his sleeve to gather more attention to himself and his poetry. By doing this, he is not only cheating his readers into believing that he has a meaningful connection with their deity, but himself as well. Part of being an agnostic requires a suspension of resolution – something that is difficult to do in our society. For Johnson to focus so singularly on Christianity creates an irreconcilable position between his agnosticism and his work; you cannot have your cake and eat it too, so to speak.
The poetry itself, too, I found bland and uninspired. There is a kind of academic detachment in the writings of those who profess to be atheistic or agnostic and yet attempt to write from the point of view of a Christian (or whatever religious follower). I know I have this problem too; I write a lot of fiction, most of which with a somewhat heavy (and biased) view against organized religion. In order to do this, I like to show what I see to be the good in religion by writing characters that are religious and attempt to work their beliefs into the life of an otherwise sound character, while simultaneously giving my writing a platform for religious discussions. The problem with me, as well as with Johnson, is that taking on the religious mind and attempting to write therein is impossible, and it shows. Something about the forced level of acceptance is transparent, which in turn makes anything else being said of less or no value.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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.
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.
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