Racial Mountain

Langston Hughes, a 20th centruy African American writer, uses the term, racial mountain, in the "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain." The racial mountain for the African Americans is the white society and the mountain of values they expect everyone to emulate. He is dissapointed at African American writers who are not proud to write about their culture. Hughes writes, " One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, 'I want to be a poet- not a Negroe poet,' meaning...' I would like to be white' (1192). Hughes is critical of the bourgeoisie. The black bourgeoisie is mimicking the white bourgeoisie. Hughes wants African Americans to write in African American expressive forms. These forms include: jazz, blues, dialectic poetry, folk-tales, etc.

There will always be a mountain standing in the way of those who are roposing new ideas, innovative thoughts, and something different than the norm. This "Racial mountain" does not only refer to the African American struggle. The wall is a metaphor for the obstacles all oppressed, subjugated minorities undergo.