Discussion Post: The Harlem Renaissance, Essay Example

Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiographical short-story “How It Feels to be Colored Me” contains a passage that indicates the pain that is caused to minorities by the contrast betwen self-identity and racial identity in American culture. Hurston writes of her early childhood and notes that when she moved from her first home to anew residence, she encountered racism for the first time. The experience changed her life: “”I was not Zora of Orange County any more, I was now a little colored girl. I found it out in certain ways. In my heart as well as in the mirror, I became a fast brown–warranted not to rub nor run.” (Hurston). The quote is important because it reveals the schism between the way that racial minorities are stereotyped by society and the way that an individual person of color feels about themselves. Obviously, Hurston, like nay other small girl, saw herself as a child and as an eager participant in society and life. The traumatic realization that she recounts in this quote stems from society’s refusal to accept her as an individual child, but instead pigeonholing her as “colored.”

Hurston’s story like the other readings from this unit, shows that racism during the years of the Harlem Renaissance, was rampant. The proliferation of racism during this time period was also an expression of the hierarchy of American culture. Langston Hughes’ poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” establishes the irony of racism in that it creates a sense of inhumanity that is attached to minorities when, in actually, the purveyors of racism are inhumane. Countee Cullen’s “Heritage” shows that minorities in America are refused to be a part of American culture and are therefore left as exiles within their own nation. Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” incites African Americans to stand up against the oppression of whites as a righteous response to the violence and ignorance of racism. The readings from this unit were all powerful, passionate and deeply indicative of how racism has shaped and formed American culture from its earliest beginnings.