The Racial Mountain

In his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Langston Hughes writes about how many young black poets desire subconsciously to be young white poets because the white experience has been presented to them by people (both black and white alike) as superior to the black experience. Hughes speaks about how whiteness, especially for middle and upper class blacks, has come to be synonymous with "beauty, morality, and money," and how blacks have not been taught to see the beauty of their own culture and people. Hughes encourages then that blacks embrace the rich fabric of their culture which has been historically denied. He exhorts the young Negro artist to not accept the renunciation of all things black and exaltation of all things white but rather to reclaim the voice of his people and take pride in his blackness. Yet, Hughes demonstrates the imposing height of the mountain that must be climbed, the difficulties of embarking upon this journey which must be made toward asserting Negro identity.

It seems that beyond Hughes' specific message for African Americans in this piece, he encourages people universally to write from their own experience, embrace their identity, and not fear who they are. He opens with this anecdote:

"One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, 'I want to be a poet-- not a Negro poet,' meaning, I believe, 'I want to write like a white poet'; meaning subconsciously, 'I would like to be a white poet'; meaning beyond that, 'I would like to be white.' And I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself."

This last line struck me as particularly poignant. As I have been processing different thoughts about race, culture, and identity within the past few years, I have come to recognize within myself a desire to be of a different race and different culture. I would never say that my own struggles with racial/cultural identity are in anyway comparable to the African American experience that Hughes describes in his essay, but nevertheless, this last line sparked my thinking. I think that I have so often longed to be of a different race because I am ashamed of the connotations of my white skin; I am ashamed of the abusive privilege and power that it holds when traveling and even within the US, and I am ashamed of how white skin has historically been oppressive in cultures all throughout the world. I am ashamed to be associated with not only my skin color but also with the specific kind of whiteness that Hughes highlights as the ideal which blacks were taught to desire-- American, middle class, suburban, cultural whiteness. I would like to shed the assumptions and stereotypes that come with that association. Having grown up in a mostly homogeneous town in suburban America, I have come to realize that I do not have a strong sense of cultural identity. My racial identity crisis extends beyond the color of my skin to include my culture and nationality. I long to be able to claim a culture which is built upon traditions and a strong sense of community rather than upon a shared experience of making frequent trips to the mall, watching certain television shows, and eating processed foods. Anyway, my own ramblings and cultural critique aside, I wonder how Hughes would respond to my desire to be Hispanic, or black, or Indian...surely, it is unhealthy for any person "to be afraid of being himself." Yet, is this hesitancy to claim and find my identity within my own culture somehow more justified because it is born out of an awareness of how that culture has dominated/colonized other cultures? Is there a different mountain to climb on the other side of the racial coin?