Langston Hughes and the Racial Mountain

Langston Hughes piece "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" is a strong piece about racial and cultural identity. Race played an important role in the creation of many important genres and fields of art. Jazz and Blues have deep roots to songs that were sung by impoverished second class citizens, people who were at one point held against their will. That kind of emotion is the kind that can only be found in music like the blues. It couldn't be felt exactly the same by anyone else. Likewise however race is not an impassable wall. The proof is in the number of talented white jazz musicians who would come along much later. It is not that blacks are the only people who can play such soulful music, however the cultural background that the pioneers of it came from made them the only ones who could truly create and define the genre. In that same vein even a white man could know suffering, he could still relate to the blues even if he didn't have the years of prejudice and suffering. Hughes is adamant about his fellow black people being proud of their arts but I think it is important to remember that it is not their race or skin tone that is important, it's their life. It's their past. It's everything about who people are not just the color of their skin. Hughes put it perfectly when he said "No great poet has ever been afraid of being himself."