Are All Black People the Same?

Whenever I talk about racial issues, particularly between black people and white people, I feel uncomfortable. Even now, I feel uncomfortable writing the title to this blog and using the word "black" to refer to African Americans. Why do I feel so uncomfortable saying "black people"? Im sure most black people dont feel uncomfortable saying "white people." They dont trip over long titles like "African American" by saying "Caucasian" or "Western / Eastern European" or "Anglo saxon" when referring to my race. Why is this? Is it because we realize the immense impact slavery in the US has had on generations of blacks? Is this our way of perpetually apologizing to them, being so careful not to offend them when in their presence? Surely, I am not the only white girl who feels this way and is baffled by it!

I am particularly interested in the way we generalize races when we talk about them, even our own race. In reading Langston Hughes essay, I was interested to see that he had this need to unite the black population as one, to have them all band together to fight white supremacy and appreciate their own Negro Artist. I wondered if this is inherent in Post-colonial and ethnic literature, where a group that has been oppressed feels a need to unite, because I think I can say that no white writer ever wrote to unite all whites in some display of art. Does this only come from a minority group that has had to fight oppression? If this is so, I dont think Hughes does such an adequate job of uniting all blacks. He lets his own assumptions and prejudices get in the way.

Near the end of the essay, he seems to imply that the best art will please neither the black or white audience. He seems to believe such problems as pleasing the white majority in art production are best solved by developing an indifference to both audiences, cultivating an art that is true to itself. But throughout the whole essay, I dont think he does this. His writing is inextricably linked to his race, clearly. He is proud of his race, saying that Negro is beautiful, but then he seems to not want to be defined by his race at the same time, especially not by white people. I think it is particularly presumptous of him to say that the young Negro poet, in saying that he only wanted to be a poet apart from being a Negro poet, was really saying that he wanted to be a white poet. I think that black artists can achieve without being defined by their race. It is possible, though I do realize that racism is still strongly present in our country and blacks are still defined by their race in many instances. But I do think black people dont need to be defined by their race, and then also that doesnt mean that they are then running into the arms of the whites. Cant that black poet be defined by other factors before his race, like his sex or maybe his religion or maybe his education?

I also think Hughes works against uniting blacks by suddenly siding with the "common folk" though he himself is certainly not one of them. He seems to think that the black middle and upper class are sell-outs, so this theoretical Artist must come from the common folk depths if Negros will be appreciated. I think Hughes has a romanticized view of the sell-out Negros and the common Negros. He severely stereotypes them into these nice little portraits, playing with imagery and phonetic language like a poet would do. I dont think Hughes is a very good literary critic. He does not account for the fact that all blacks are not alike; they do not all love jazz music. His solution of appreciation in Negro art is limited and more poetic, than cleverly argumentative and all-encompassing. He writes that he wants to unlease this "dark-skinned individuality" in the common folk, but he is not one of them. He is that separate, educated artist that those very people, those common folk, might label a sell-out to the whites. Ok, maybe Im being a bit harsh here. I dont know much about Hughes and what he was like while he was alive, but currently, he is admired by the whites just as much as the blacks. How would he feel about that, I wonder?