Langston Hughes was one of the most prominent poets of his era and his works are still read and studied today. He once recounted how a young Negro poet came to him claiming that the hoped he could write like a poet and not just as a Negro poet. It might seem baffling and inconsequential today but in the time he lived African Americans were still constantly reminded of slavery in their everyday life and this young poet wished he could be considered orseen as acceptable through his craft. Although the fight for belonging still goes on in America today, it was an almost insurmountable mountain in those days. Any and everything reminded them about segregation and how they were not seen as full Americans or even full-fledged human beings.
This poet was not alone though as Black art suffered greatly them in America and these people tried to fuse as little Black and as much American as possible into their craft in a bid to be given a chance to fit into the Caucasian standard of what was consider American. But what exactly would have made such a young African American man aspire to be as white as possible? Could it possibly be due to the fact that when he was much younger his father always pointed out to them how well the whites were doing whenever he came back from his job of serving them? Or could it even be due to the fact that his mother always reprimanded them saying, "don't be like nigger" whenever they misbehaved? Whatever the case may be this young man grew up to see been black in America as something to be despised and avoided as best as he could.
While he could never change the fact that he was indeed African American, what he wanted basically was what all the other African Americans who trudged the land like him desired and that was a sense of belonging and respect in their person. They have been told by the society and the circumstances they have found themselves that there is nothing beautiful in being a Negro as it does not fit into the Caucasian American plans.