Harlem Renaissance

I think that the most beautiful thing about reading black art is attempting to see the world through their eyes. So, I think they should want to share their experiences with everyone. It’s very sad to me that Countee Cullen is so ashamed of his own life that he would rather be seen as a catering to the white population kind of person. What I got from Cullen’s poem, “Yet I Do Marvel,” is that he wants his poems to be beautiful but believes that his struggles / sharing his life experiences cannot be beautiful. In Langston Hughes “Weary Blues,” he is suggesting that listening to this man’s story is beautiful to him. This is an acknowledgement in art of the beauty of their suffering. He enjoyed sitting and listening to this man’s song of his blues. Another one of Hughes writings, “The Negro Artist and The Racial Mountain” counters back to Cullen’s poem. Something he said that I’m sure stood out to everyone else as well was, “But this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America—this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.” He believes that black artists shouldn’t be “racing towards whiteness,” as he would say. You know this especially because of his last paragraph, “We 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.” Hughes wants to faithfully represent his black community in everything he does. He is proud of who he is and the art he can make based on his life.