Post #5: "Arts and Politics"

ENN 191-0920
04/29/2010
Prof. Tanenbaun.
Jackelyn G. Cortez.


“Arts and Politics”

Since 1926, with “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” by Langston Hughes, the African American community started to question if: “the word white comes to be unconsciously a symbol of all virtues, that holds for the children beauty, morality, and money.” (Langston Hughes, Page1). Certainly, they did not see that in their future. Because that kind of thought created a resentful generation but also one that through education could fight for the rights of black people. “The Black Arts Movement” by Larry Neal helped black people to find their identity and be proud of it, while “Towards Black Liberation” by Stockely Carmichael urge black people to defend their rights as Americans in order to fight racism and discrimination, and there is no better way than being involved in the affairs of the community in relation to politics. Arts and politics in their own way helped the African American community to be more aware of their position in American society.
“The Black Arts Movement” by Larry Neal is a manifesto that talks about art and the way it should be for African Americans. The author states that art should focus on ethics rather than aesthetics. Because Western society tends to use art more as entertainment praising beauty instead of something useful and inspiring for black people. This movement is against white aesthetics because it supports the idea that the African American community should value their roots, history, and culture. I think that it could be a way in which black people can be united as a whole and become a Black power that can help to change the fate of African Americans. As Larry Neal, says: “The motive behind the Black aesthetic is the destruction of the white thing, the destruction of white ideas, and white ways of looking at the world. The new aesthetic is mostly predicated on an Ethics which ask the question: Whose vision of the world is finally more meaningful, ours or the white oppressors’?”(Larry Neal, 448). He also states that the Black arts and the Black power are directly related because one complements the other in order to make it stronger. I think this is true, because it applies to any kind of art like poetry, music, acting, or sculpture that can help in a way to push a movement into a particular direction like a common goal or when Beltroch Betch says: “Art is not a mirror to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” This means that art could be useful in many ways like in politics, too because we as citizens have the right to protest before injustice. But the Black Arts movement is against “protest” literature, too. This is because it does not respect the ethics of the Black Arts Movement which is about moral, values, and nationalism. As a movement, it encourages the African American community to create their own “Black aesthetics’” with innovative forms of art, new history, culture and traditions.
“Towards Black Liberation” by Stockely Carmichael is a manifesto about racism and discrimination toward black stereotypes and the fight in order to achieve the integration of black people in America. It is basically against these two issues towards the African American community. They as a minority have to face abuse, violence, oppression and injustice because they live in a white society. This form of totalitarism reinforces individual racism which is the personal violence or hate towards black people and the institutional racism which is the government neglect towards black people. The author, states:” Negroes are defined by two forces, their blackness and their powerlessness. There have been traditionally two communities in America: the white community, which controlled and defined the forms of all institutions within the society, would take and the Negro community, which have been excluded from participation in the power decisions that shaped the society, and has traditionally been dependent upon, and subservient to, the white community.” Here the author accentuates that African Americans have the right to be active members of the American society, and not just observers around a white society. These lines called my attention because they are about getting involved into important issues in order to help the African American community, as well as others, nowadays. They emphasize the importance of participation of black people into their own affairs in order to better their conditions. But the main goal here is “integration” because it would let the African American community to have more opportunities on education, jobs, and in life itself. It would be beneficial for African Americans and whites also, because “ You can integrate communities, but you assimilate individuals”.(Stockely Carmichael, 128) These individuals that once professionals can come back to their communities in order to make it better, educating their people, having more political participation, etc. The author, in this manifesto is responding to an incident that happened in 1964, in Mississipi with L. B. Johnson and Hubert H. Humphrey, because they took advantage of the African American community in order to achieve some political representation. It was a shameful and intolerable situation, because political racism undermined black people in their effort to have some political participation in America.
I think that the “Black Arts Movement” by Larry Neal and “Towards Black Liberation” by Stockely Carmichael would be in favor of “The Black Panther Party, 10 Point Platform” because they all pursue the same goal which is real freedom for black people in America and the power to determine the fate of their community. Even though these two manifestos by Larry Neal and Carmichael focus on the African American community, they have different responses towards it. Larry Neal talks about arts and its function within the black community, considering ethics and black aesthetics as the main regulators of black art. In the other hand, Carmichael talks about the active participation of black people in American politics because it concerns them, too; and the kind of racism African Americans are prey of in the white society. From my point of view, I find “Towards Black Liberation” more persuasive because it calls the attention of the reader, that being or not African American gets caught into the learning of politics in America, and how it works. That is the reason why I would like to follow the purpose of the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), because their main goal was the integration of the African American community into the white society and the abolition of racism. And this example could be applied, nowadays for minority groups in America that are still fighting for their rights before American society like blind people, especial not retarded people, gays, lesbians, disabled and many others; because they are supposed to have the same rights as any other citizen of America.