Artists and Preachers in Our Raison D'Etre

Anna Julia Cooper's article Our Raison D'Etre provides lots of figurative language and literary allusions to make an argument about the absence of an authentic African American voice in literature. It is interesting to note that she lived 106 years. In the article she states "What I hope to see before I die is a black man honestly and appreciatively portraying both the Negro as he is, and the white man, occasionally, as seen from the Negro's standpoint. There is an old proverb "The devil is always painted black-by white painters. And what is needed, perhaps, to reverse the picture of the lordly man slaying the lion, is for the lion to turn painter." I hope that she got her wish, and I believe that the advent of the civil rights movement probably granted it.

In the article, she divides writers in to two distinct categories. She says "By rough classification, authors may be separated into two groups: first, those in whom the artistic or poetic instinct is uppermost- those who write to please- or rather who write because they please; who simply paint what they see, as naturally, as instinctively and as irresistibly as the bird sings-with no thought of an audience-singing because it loves to sing-singing because God, nature, truth sing through it. For such writers, to be true to themselves and true to Nature is the only Canon. They cannot warp a character or distort a fact in order to prove a point..." As English Majors we are all familiar with this first group she defines, the artist's for the artist's sake if you will. The artist is perceived as more honest in their art, painting only what they see and ignoring the connotations, denying the audience's existence, and expressing divinity.

"In the second group belong the preachers-whether of righteousness or unrighteousness- all who have an idea to propagate, no matter in what form their talent enables them to clothe it, whether poem, novel, or sermon-all those writers with a purpose of lesson, who catch you by the buttonhole and pommel you over the shoulder till you are forced to give assent in order their vociferation" This category holds the author's who are more oriented towards being didactic in their message. This category seems to receive the blame for oppressing the true African American voice. She say's "Most of the writers who have hitherto attempted a portrayal of life and customs among the darker race have belonged to our class II: they have all, more or less, had a point to prove or a mission to accomplish, and thus their art has been almost uniformly perverted to serve their ends; and, to add to their disadvantage, most, if not all the writers on this line have been but partially acquainted with the life they wished to delineate and through sheer ignorance oft-times, as well as from design occasionally, have not been able to put themselves in the darker man's place." She is criticizing White author's here who have tried to represent the African American in discourse and failed at authentically doing so. Apparently, this was due to a lack of honesty in the representation. This lack of honesty seems to stem from the writers tendency to incorporate a "point" instead of just representing things as they are.

Towards the end of the article she say's"I am brought to the conclusion that an authentic portrait, at once aesthetic and true to life, presenting the black man as a free American citizen, not the humble slave of Uncle Tom's Cabin- but the man, divinely struggling and aspiring yet tragically warped and distorted by the adverse winds of circumstance, has not yet been painted. It is my opinion that the canvas awaits the brush of the colored man himself." I think Langston Hughes, although he had his own point, would serve as a great example of an African American author whom presented his own race's character vividly and authentically.