Locke's New Negro and Waiting For Superman

Blog #4

While the New Negro has accomplished external advances in society, the greater transformation has developed within the internal world of the Negro mind and spirit (Locke, XXV). As the New Negro expands his consciousness to encompass his full potential, intellectually, physically and politically, his attitudes towards himself and his race mature. Prior to the construction of the New Negro, the Negro experience was something discussed but often from an outsider’s perspective. The emergence of the New Negro’s voice and artistic self-expression has permitted the Black people the opportunity to construct their own identity, thus granting them a sense of agency.  The focus of my thesis is analyzing how Geoffrey Canada is a twenty-first century new Negro. In my paper I argue that his educational practices embody the courageous and rebellious attitude needed to transform Americas education system into one where every child is treated with the potential to succeed. Using education as a mode to uplift the black community from centuries of oppression towards reinventing themselves within society as equals. The main text that I will be pulling from for my thesis is Waiting For Superman. The text is supplementary to the film that recently brought the crisis of the American public school system to the forefront of American dialogue. Geoffrey Canada, one of the main voices in the film speaks to the systematic problem of the school system and the negative impact it has had on poor students of color. Canada’s efforts to fight for the children whom the system fails to help succeed in this world. The children in the Harlem community that Canada’s programs benefit have to continually been denied the resources and proper teachers to thrive alongside their white counterparts. Like other New Negro’s, Geoffrey Canada recognizes that the system has been designed around a racist agenda and therefore has inhibited the black community from the educational, occupational, and economic opportunities necessary for a happy and successful life.  Canada’s drastic results oriented practices are viewed by some as too radical, but I argue in my thesis that they are the what define Mr. Canada as a contemporary New Negro. He provides leadership to the type of racial and educational activism that will help progress the Black identity within America and open the doors of opportunity to the poor black community that have been historically marginalized.

Harlem and Chicago

In his discussion Baldwin expands on conversation regarding the Harlem Renaissance to the great migration destination of Chicago. He argues that those who migrated came with a fresh intellectual outlook and perspective, leaving behind their old southern ways. While Locke gives a more general overview of the New Negro, Baldwin gives a voice to the everyday people who experienced the change. However the main difference between Baldwin and Locke is exhibited by Baldwin’s study of popular culture versus Locke’s study of the arts.  It is through the arts such as poetry and paintings, that Locke believes the New Negro has spiritually emancipated himself from a subject of study to a self-respecting individual.  As Locke examines Harlem and Baldwin examines Chicago they recognize that the motives of those who migrated there may have been different but there reuniting as a masses is what really matters. Artistically as Harlem became their safe haven the New Negro population began to support each other towards a progression of ideologies that exhibited their true self and not their faults.  Through their creative expression the New Negro has been successful in the alteration of spirituality towards progression as an African American. Baldwin feels that the progression that the New Negro has made towards autonomy and self-respect was found in Chicago’s marketplace. After WWI the industrial production of cultural entertainments became relatively cheap which created a wider access for those of all socio-economic groups. He reveals how the black entrepreneurs, entertainers, and the black consumer developed a separate economic and institutional world, known as the metropolis as a means to control their security and economic well-being. As the cultural industries became more available, it became a medium for the New Negro his independence and mental liberation.  

Youth

Blog #2

The New Negro is one whose drive is to transform the stereotypical racially inferior ideas of society into thoughts of himself as an intellectual and biological equal. The early Twentieth century formation of a new identity, psychologically and spiritually, has allowed for the African American community to reinvent and reposition themselves within society. Upon further examination of this movement Alain Locke reveals how the Negro has gained the ability to not only be the subject of discussion and observation but to speak for himself. As Alain Locke explains in The New Negro, “ A main change has been, of course, that shifting of the Negro population which has made the Negro problem no longer exclusively or even predominantly Southern” (5).  Wilkerson speaks to this transition in her text about the great migration. While the three main narratives in her text illustrate a common motivation for migration, each one offers a personal account as to why they finally took the risk and left the South. I choose to read about Robert Foster who eventually left Monroe, Louisiana for Los Angeles. Like the others in the text Foster could no longer accept the conditions of the Jim Crow world in which he was growing up. On a day-to-day basis Foster and others within the black community were forced to subject to the spoken and unspoken rules of Jim Crow segregation. Throughout Foster’s description of how his town was clearly divided by the railroad tracks and the separation within the Paramount Theater it becomes clear to the reader that even as a naïve boy Foster was socialized to know his place in this world. Like the psychological transformation of the New Negro we see Foster’s self-determination progress and his submissiveness diminish. As the beginning section of Foster’s youth comes to a close he recounts an act of blatant refusal of submission towards a white mans derogatory request. His remark to the gentleman searching for a black female to have sex with, exhibits Fosters aggravation with the cast systems in place. From Foster’s narrative I see the transformation of an African American youth into the New Negro that Alain Locke refers to. I feel as though Langston Hughes also expresses the sentiments of the New Negro youth in his poem Youth. The optimistic tone of the poem in conjunction with the attitude that tomorrow is the future and can bring about change, reminds me of the spirits of the New Negro. In the last stanza Hughes speaks about the youth marching forward and over the rough road of the past. The development of Foster from a child subjected to the educational disparities that Jim Crow brings forth to this young man who is learning to speak up for himself despite the consequences is what I think Hughes captures in his poem. That despite the terrible conditions of Jim Crow segregation tomorrow holds a bright flame that can change everything.

Why I am a Black Studies Major :]

Over the course of the last two years I have taken numerous classes within the Black Studies department at UCSB. These courses have not only varied across subject material but over the degree of academic complexity as well. Professor Banks was the most intimidating Professor I have encountered but by far the most academically challenging. I did not miss a single day of class, did not to use my phone, and did not dare to show up to class unprepared. While it was time consuming and challenging, this is truly the class where I learned how to be a black studies undergraduate. However, I have found every black studies class that I have been enrolled in to be enriching and inspirational. For instance, music with Professor Stewart was not academically difficult but I found it to be culturally educational. Every course I have taken has taught me something valuable that I will use towards stirring a change in our current social constructs.

Like many in the major, my original major was not black studies. I started my journey at UCSB as a Business Economics Undergraduate with the dream of someday being able to open my own convalescent home. My passion for assisting the elderly is still very much alive but after working at my current occupation I realized that the real catalyst for changing the world is in the experiences and socialization of our youth.  As my career ambitions in life changed so did my educational goals. Switching majors has proven to be the best decision I have made at UCSB thus far. I have had the honor of taking the education of black children course with the Senior Professor Johnson. For me the course reinforced every notion I have ever felt regarding the level of playing fields that race, class, and gender prescribe people. Those of us in the major are fully aware that there exist privileges and disadvantages based on those three factors that have immediate and long term effects on us. Modern racism is more systematically concealed than before and the objectives of the black studies courses have been to unveil the truth and motives behind institutional racism and to challenge us to make a difference.