Analysis 7: For no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself.

Admittedly choosing a white artist to analyze Langston Hughes can be seen as disrespectful or missing the point of his essay, maybe even trivializing the struggles that the Harlem Renaissance chose to confront, embrace, and make their own.  Yet he is a white artist in a "black" genera, and he is more than that, he is an artist speaking for himself, he is not trying to be black or white, "for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself" (Hughes 1192).  So it is in honor of Mr. Hughes that I am choosing an artist like Eminem, the racial mountain is no longer just faced by the "Negro Artist" but by every artist.  Each individual most break out of each social stigma that is placed against their respective race, class, religion, or nationality.  Eminem is a white artist in a black artist's medium, and he  is excelling at it.

What you think, I'm doing this for me, so fuck the world

Feed it beans, it's gassed up, if a thing's stopping me

I'mma be what I set out to be, without a doubt undoubtedly

And all those who look down on me I'm tearing down your balcony

No if ands or buts don't try to ask him why or how can he 

(Eminem - Not Afraid)

Hughes commented on America's standardization, and that black artists were able to break away from this standardization in a way that white artists were not. Yet the middle class and rich blacks wanted to be standardized, and Hughes' essay is a cry against that. It is a manifesto against standardization, about accepting who the artist is as a black artist. Even today this essay is felt in society, rap and the music industry is being standardized.  The lyrics and content are becoming cookie cutter and so are the artists, they are trying to sell the image and life style, yet artists like Eminem break that image because they are outside of the norm. "We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too" (Hughes 1196), it is no longer the Negro artists struggle by himself.  The Harlem Renaissance has come and gone and affected mainstream popular culture.  There are those rappers who try to be black, yet they are white or latino, and then their are those rappers who do not act the part they are told to, yet embrace their own identity.  Eminem is a white rapper, he is not a "wigger" or a white man trying to be black.  He is the new face of Hughes, he is the new era of the renaissance, it is not longer a racial movement but a cultural one.  One that must be taken on by all of America not just a select few.

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain". ed. Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.