The following literary essay is written in response to viewpoints on racism highlighted by 20th century writers in the book, The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader.
America is a nation of constant, internal conflict. Since the first colonists stepped down on these lands, there has always been a disgusting norm. Racism in America. Racism does not define America, but it has lasted in American history since it’s foundation. Many of our greatest achievements were built off of the backs of slaves, and it’s no coincidence that the process to gain civil rights for all Americans took far longer than it should have. Whether it be due to ignorance, hate, or greed, racism will always rear its ugly head in our society, but to deal with racism is a somewhat divided topic. Throughout the 20th century, writers like Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Norman Mailer reacted to acts of racism in America, influencing their followers to think in a way similar to them.
In Claude McKay’s view, the African American people should fight back against racist views, using violence if necessary. McKay represents this viewpoint in his poem “If We Must Die” (pg. 290). The making of this poem came shortly after the Chicago Race Riots of 1919, a series of riots that lasted for a week, in which 38 people died, 500+ were injured, and over 1,000 black homes were burnt down. In his first lines, McKay states “If we must die, let it not be like hogs; Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot”. These lines refer to the ‘Black Belt’, an area in Chicago where African Americans primarily lived and where the majority of the rioting occurred. It was here that the mayor deployed the national guard. He goes on to say, “If we must die, O let us nobly die, so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain.”, which is McKay’s way of telling African Americans to fight back. Calling their blood ‘precious’ is saying the blood of these innocent Americans is just as equal to that of the people murdering them.
Therefore, to make sure they aren’t just casualties of racism, they must fight back against this antagonizing force, so that even if they die, they die honorably in combat. This is backed by the next line, “then even the monsters we defy; Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!” Although an old concept, death by combat has been seen as an honorable tradition, and in McKay’s eyes, the reason African Americans are slaughtered is because they haven’t fought back hard enough. To meet violence with violence would, at the very least, make the people killing them recognize and respect their conviction in death. Finally, McKay closes with the lines, “Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack; Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” Sadly, McKay admits that even if they fight back, they will still lose. However, he stands firm in his belief that an honorable death is a good enough reason to fight.
Langston Hughes focuses on representation, support and encouragement for the minority artist in the Harlem Renaissance. In his essay, “The Negro Artists and the Racial Mountain”, Hughes addresses many forms of doubt inflicted by cases of oppression and racism in the homes of African American families. At the beginning of his essay, Hughes recounts a conversation with a young black poet. The poet tells Hughes he wanted “to be a poet - not a Negro poet”, to which Hughes inferred to mean “I want to be white” (Pg. 91). Hughes reasons that the poet would rather be treated like a white man than a black man, seemingly a call for equal rights, but in reality, a problematic way of thinking. Hughes knows that the key to greatness is comfort in one’s own skin. A strong sense of self-worth is a requirement of a good artist. It’s this “mountain” that stops young African American poets from improving.
However, the idea of superiority was not imparted by white people themselves, but by the poet’s family. This particular poet hailed from a black middle-class family, capable of sending their children to a mixed school, and living within comfort. Yet the parents would consistently speak in a manner demeaning to other black people, and subconsciously put the idea of being white on a pedestal. According to Hughes, the mother would say, “Don’t be like niggers” (pg. 91), when disciplining the children, and the father would say, “Look how well a white man does things” in casual conversation. Such phrases devalue what it is to be black and teach middle class black children to be ashamed of their skin color. This is why in his poem, “America”, Hughes encourages those who have been oppressed or hated to love themselves, and love being American. In this poem, Hughes compares the past of black slaves and poor Europeans, in hopes to show that both white and black people came from the bottom. We see this in the lines, “Out of yesterday, the chains of slavery; Out of yesterday, the ghettos of Europe;”, which is immediately followed by the lines, “The poverty and pain of the old, old world, The building and struggle of this new one...” (pg. 258). Despite both sides coming from a rut, they are meant to build a new America together.
Despite his best intentions, Norman Mailer subconsciously uses racism in his essay “The White Negro”, to disregard the pains of the black American. In Norman Mailer’s, “The White Negro”, Mailer describes hipsters as, “white negros”, saying they have, “absorbed the existentialist synapses of the Negro” (pg. 586). Earlier in the essay he describes this existentialism in vivid detail. On page 584, Mailer claims that in the hipster’s view, “if the fate of twentieth century man is to live with death, that he should then accept the terms of death”, going on to say that to be hip is to be, “a frontiersman in the Wild West of America”. Mailer romanticizes the ideals of the hipster, claiming that a hipster, in turn, is a “white Negro”. While this may encourage some to be more beat, following the hipster lifestyle, this claim in itself is racist against African Americans. To say that the existential hipster is the perfect definition of an African American is to say that all African Americans are hipsters, which is far from true. Many African Americans at this time lived in constant fear of death. This by Norman’s viewpoint would immediately classify them as “Squares”, but that sort of thinking only furthers the point. At the time of its release (1957), African Americans had plenty of problems to fear, due to racism and oppression in American culture.
In the first month of that same year, the Klu Klux Klan murdered Willie Edwards Jr., forcing him to jump off a bridge into the Alabama river, where he subsequently drowned. Similarly, until the Civil Rights Act of 1957, some schools were still following segregation-based rules, separating white and black students. The decision to pass this right came shortly after the “Little Rock Crisis”, when a group of nine black students called the “Little Rock Nine”, attempted to enter a racially segregated school, only to have the National guard prevent them from entering. To claim that African Americans have nothing to fear, is to say that oppression is not a problem in America, and it is unfair to say that African Americans are all rebels. Rather than live against the system, many African Americans wanted to be a part of it. To live like any other person, without prejudice based on race, gender, or sex is to be equal. Something like the Civil Rights Movement would be seen as a next step towards achieving that goal, and Norman is simply undermining the hard work of African Americans who fought hard to achieve that goal.
MLA Citation
Lewis, David Levering. The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Penguin, 2008.
Charters, Ann. The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin, 2006.
Editors, History.com. “The Chicago Race Riot of 1919.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2 Dec. 2009, www.history.com/topics/black-history/chicago-race-riot-of-1919.
Pollard, Kelvin M, and William P O'Hare. “America's Racial and Ethnic Minorities.” Population Reference Bureau, 1 Sept. 1999, www.prb.org/americasracialandethnicminorities/.