Kip Hinton
May 1995
I
Am Me.
Zora Neale Hurston and
Racial Equality
On September eighteenth, nineteen thirty-seven, Their Eyes Were Watching God, one of the greatest novels of
this century, was published. It was met with mixed reviews. The major (white) periodicals
found it enjoyable and simple, while black literary circles said it "carries no
theme, no message" (Wright,1937). These evaluations are not
mutually exclusive, but rather demonstrate the conception of Hurston's work as telling
whites what they want to hear and not dealing with racism. While Hurston did receive
recognition during her life, she died forgotten and wasn't considered one of America's
greatest writers until recently. Why did luminaries such as Richard Wright and Langston
Hughes deny her worth? And how do we know they were wrong?
Hurston once told Nick Ford "I have ceased to think in terms
of race; I think only in terms of individuals. I am interested in you now not as a Negro
man but as a man. I am not interested in the race problem, but I am interested in the
problems of individuals, white ones and black ones." Ford's response was "If the
Negro is to rise in the estimation of the world, he must be continuously presented in a
more favorable light, even in fiction... Negro authors owe such loyalty to their
people" (Ford,1936). This response reflects much of her
criticisms. There are three important assumptions here: The perception of
African-Americans can be improved by writing about racial inequality, Hurston does not do
this, and she has accrued some debt to do so.
Literature can probably change the world's thoughts on many
things, and racial inequality may be one of them. For this to work, a book needs whites as
an audience. But not just any whites- racists of the period probably saw Richard Wright's Native
Son as evidence of blacks' inferiority and savagery. Only intellectual, open-minded
whites will 'get it.' However, this is not the group that needs their perception altered.
Maybe people between these two groups are the target. These individuals will still either
understand or not, so there seems to be negligible benefit from this approach.
Does Hurston "owe" her race anything? When does anyone
owe anything? Parents owe it to their children to raise them well; Tenants owe their
landlords rent. These relationships were formed by choice. Hurston never chose her race,
but she did live in Eatonville, and was raised by it's African-American community. Is that
where her debt came from? Children do not owe their parents for their room and board when
they move out. They have the choice to raise their own children or not. If the debts of
family disappear after each generation, how can debts persist among people untold
generations separated? It is admirable for children to choose to help their parents, and
African-Americans to choose to help their race, but they have no obligation.
The most inportant question is whether Hurston's books further
racial equality or not. Langston Hughes certainly didn't think so, calling her "a
perfect 'darkie.'" He believed whites paid her for being their happy stereotype so
they could feel okay about blacks' inequality (Hughes,1940).
Likewise, Alain Locke criticized her avoidance of interracial confrontations (Locke,1938), as did Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison (Gates,1993).
Nick Ford objects to her not painting a quixotic picture of her characters (Ford,1936),
and this view was shared by a number of prominent black artists (Love,1976).
These critics wanted Hurston to address racism and oppression their way. They believed
only by preaching to the white reader about how wonderful blacks really were and how
horrible discrimination was could equality be achieved. This idea has no basis in science
or reason: Telling a racist he's racist won't make him change. In reality, the whites of
the 1930's would have many experiences with blacks, some good, some bad, most in between.
If these whites read of a world where all blacks are perfect, they won't assume their
experiences are wrong, they will assume what they are reading is. China constantly
bombards its citizens with idealized "facts." Long ago the Chinese learned to
disbelieve whatever the state tells them (Lawrence,1995).
In reading Zora Neale Hurston's books, the reader does not feel
guilt or pity about African-Americans. The reader instead empathizes, loves, hates, and
mourns, because Hurston makes her characters so real and human it is impossible not to.
When Janie is on trial at the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God, we are as well.
When Lucy is mortally ill at the end of Jonah's Gourd Vine, we feel her loss.
Hurston has the rare power to write fiction that is timeless and vibrant.
It is this power that makes Hurston so good at promoting
"the realization that Negroes are no better nor no worse" (Hurston,1950)
than whites. By making the reader (specifically the white reader) identify with her
characters, Hurston conveys how much like whites they are. Her characters are really no
different from anyone the average white in the 1930's would know. She fosters equality
simply because her beliefs sublimate into her writing, and from there into the reader's
mind.
Many have said Hurston's avoidance of racial confrontations
resulted from the influence of her white patrons, but all of her major work was written
when she was no longer receiving patronage (Hemenway,1977). Most
black writers of the period had patrons, and she even shared a patron with her critic
Langston Hughes.
Some contended that she didn't care about racial inequality.
Hurston actually does address race relations many times in Their
Eyes Were Watching God- Janie's marriage to Logan (p.14), the founding of
Eatonville (p.27), the burial of the bodies (p.163), and the courtroom scene (p.179) are
all depictions of racisms influences. Hurston additionally wrote many essays, articles,
and letters about race relations and the horror of the Jim Crow laws, and probably had
more pride in her race than any of her critics (Walker,1979). She
grasped every exceptional thing about being African-American and told the world.
Above everything else, Zora Neale Hurston was a writer. She was a
writer who happened to be female and happened to be black, so that was what she wrote
about. "Zora would have been Zora even if she'd been an Eskimo" (Walker,1979). That was precisely why she promoted equality: Her joy
and power as an individual was so overwhelming, she was in fact the Harlem Renaissance's
most effective attack on racism. Hurston put it best when she said, "at certain times
I have no race, I am Me."
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