A Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

     In the article "A Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" written by Langston Hughes,Hughes explains his thoughts on a very promising quote that was said to him by a young negro poet. The quote "I want to be a poet--not a negro poet" was interpreted by Hughes as a form of disappointment to the negro culture because the young poet did not want to embrace his culture. I do no agree with Langston Hughes interpretation of the quote because i don't feel as if the young poet was ashamed of his culture. My interpretation was that he wanted to simply be remembered as a good poet without having to be put into a racial category. To me saying that someone is a negro poet rather than simply stating that someone is a poet means that that person is only compared and put into a group with other negro poets rather being compared and being put in the group of all poets regardless of race. In this time period I can also understand why the young poet would want to be mentioned as simply a poet because this was a time period where whites were seen as being better and were held to higher standards than those standards the blacks were held to. In a way i feel that Hughes interpretation was ignorant in the sense that he seems to believe that for the young poet to truly embrace and love his culture he had to be just like other negro artists and only talk about their culture and their way of lives rather than being able to expand and pass the racial.