Identification

I was reading through some of the blogs for this week and I thought that the Harlem Renaissance is a period that I really though should be brought up this week for my blog. The two authors we read Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen both gave me to different perspectives of how blacks felt during this time. The two conflicting ideas here are whether to take pride in being black, or to try and be white with. In Langston Hughes poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, he writes as if he is proud to be black, while in Countee Cullen’s poem “Heritage”, he has a sort of feel of distance from Africa. To some degree I agree with his point of view and tone, attitude towards this because his poem was written in the 1930s at a time where his connection to Africa was very far away, so Countee Cullen really has no ties to Africa except his heritage. Countee Cullen was born in the United States and should take pride in being a black American. I definitely agree with what Emily was saying here about how she wasn’t sure whether believes that or not Countee Cullen was trying to be white, but at the same time, he does not take pride in his heritage of being Africa. I guess that is because he is not African but maybe he believes that he is a Black America. These two ideas where very controversial at this time because the black community viewed some of the people who were trying to act as though they where white as betrayers to the community but others, viewed them as individuals who are trying to make their way up the rankings in society. These topics are very touchy and hard to imagine for me because I am not black and have never experienced the type of self-identification that these authors had to do. I found it interesting how two people who are going through the same type of segregation and racial issues could have two opposite view points.