What do the three Harlem Renaissance authors you read for homework believe aboutthe black artist?

“The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926)

Langston Hughes

The Source of True ArtThese common people are not afraid of spirituals, as for a long time their more intellectual brethren were, and jazz is their child. They furnish a wealth of colorful, distinctive material for any artist because they still hold their own individuality in the face of American standardizations. And perhaps these common people will give to the world its truly great Negro artist, the one who is not afraid to be himself.

The MountainThe Negro artist works against an undertow of sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own group and unintentional bribes from the whites. "Oh, be respectable, write about nice people, show how good we are," say the Negroes. "Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter our illusions about you, don't amuse us too seriously. We will pay you," say the whites.

Conquering the MountainWe younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

Who would approve more of Langston Hughes?

Washington or

DuBois ?

“The Negro-Art Hokum” (1926)

Charles Schuyler

Is There Even a Negro Artist?

Negro art there has been, is, and will be among the numerous black nations of Africa; but to suggest the possibility of any such development among the ten million colored people in this republic is self-evident foolishness.

It’s All European

As for the literature, painting, and sculpture of the Aframericans—such as there is—it is identical in kind with the literature, painting, and sculpture of white Americans: that is, it shows more or less evidence of European influence.

Just Like Any Immigrant

Aside from his color, which ranges from very dark brown to pink, your American Negro is just plain American. Negroes and whites from the same localities in this country talk think, and act about the same.

“How it Feels to be Colored Me” (1928) and “Characteristics of Negro Expression” (1934)

Zora Neale Hurston

No little moment passes unadorned

But the Negro's greatest contribution to the language is…

(1) the use of metaphor and simile(2) the use of the double descriptive(3) the use of verbal nouns

What do you think?AngularityAsymmetryDancingFolklore

Culture heroesRe-interpretation

Mimicry

How It Feels to Be Colored Me

I remember the very day that I became colored.

(1928)

Language is power.Language is identity.

DeconstructionWe see the world in binary oppositions:

black vs. white good vs. evil right vs. wrong

Yet each term depends on the other for meaning

black = not white good = not evil

Marxist TheoryIdeology is a belief system as well as the power structures that enforce those beliefs.It is not a conscious practice.Ideology cannot be escaped.We’re always already in The System.

Identity doesn’t exist until it is named and compared.

Is Zora Neale Hurston the “Truly Great Negro Artist”

that Langton Hughes Imagines?

But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.

A Snapshot of Generations

Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said "On the line! " The Reconstruction said "Get set! " and the generation before said "Go! " I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep.

Double Consciousness ?

I have no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored. I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges within the boundaries. My country, right or wrong.Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.

What does it mean, this word “colored,” for Hurston?

What would Washington & DuBois think?