Zora Neale Hurston: "America's favorite black conservative"

Damon W. Root | August 17, 2009

In the latest issue of City Journal, John McWhorter offers a very interesting profile of the great Harlem Renaissance novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, who he calls "a fervent Republican who would be at home today on Fox News." I'm not so sure about the Fox News part, but there's no question that Hurston's views leaned in a conservative/libertarian direction. As she wrote in a 1951 article in the Saturday Evening Post (which McWhorter doesn't mention):

Throughout the New Deal era the relief program was the biggest weapon ever placed in the hands of those who sought power and votes. If the average American had been asked flatly to abandon his rights as a citizen and to submit to a personal rule, he would have chewed tobacco and spit white lime. But under relief, dependent upon the Government for their daily bread, men gradually relaxed their watchfulness and submitted to the will of the "Little White Father," more or less. Once they had weakened that far, it was easy to go on an on voting for more relief, and leaving Government affairs in the hands of a few. The change from a republic to a dictatorship was imperceptibly pushed ahead.

As McWhorter gently puts it, "Hurston's modern fan base doesn't know quite what to do with all this." For example, the novelist Alice Walker, whose 1975 Ms. magazine article, "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston," essentially resurrected Hurston's work, once declared, "I think we are better off if we think of Zora Neale Hurston as an artist, period—rather than as the artist/politician most black writers have been required to be." Yet as McWhorter wisely suggests in response, had Hurston's politics leaned to the left rather than the right, "one suspects that Walker would have had no trouble celebrating her as an 'artist/politician.'"

Read the rest here.

Comments

Xeones|8.17.09 @ 4:56PM|#

I saw a biography of Hurston a couple years ago and kept thinking, whoa, this woman was a LIBERTARIAN.

Art-P.O.G.|8.17.09 @ 5:00PM|#

Don't say it MNG, I know you want to contradict the article, I swear---

OK, just taking the piss out of you, mate. Unless...

Art-P.O.G.|8.17.09 @ 5:02PM|#

And if you keep beating me to what I'm going to say, Xeones, I don't know what I'm going to do...

alan|8.17.09 @ 5:04PM|#

With the come hither look and gripped cigarette, that is quite a sexy pic of Hurston you posted, Mr Root.

Alan Vanneman|8.17.09 @ 5:06PM|#

"Once they had weakened that far, it was easy to go on an on voting for more relief, and leaving Government affairs in the hands of a few."

Except of course for Blacks in the South, who couldn't vote. Somehow, I don't wish I were a sharecropper in Mississippi circa 1925.

Anyways, they didn't have flat-screen TVs back then. How can a man be free without his flat-screen? I ask you!

|8.17.09 @ 5:21PM|#

Lefties will quickly point out that Hurston actually OPPOSED integration, as she feared a dilution of black identity and culture she depicted in "Their Eyes were Watching God". Some of her black peers criticised her "minstrel" dialogue.

Of course, they'd love dangerous commies and anarchists who supported integration and desegregation for the wrong kind of reasons.

FYI|8.17.09 @ 5:26PM|#

Mathematical Model for Surviving a Zombie Attack

It is possible to successfully fend off a zombie attack, according to Canadian mathematicians. The key is to "hit hard and hit often."


Oh yes, somebody actually did a study on mathematics of a hypothetical zombie attack, and published it in a book on infectious disease. So, while we still don't know what to do if a deadly asteroid takes aim at Earth, an unlikely but technically possible situation, we now know what to do in case of a zombie attack.

"An outbreak of zombies is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead," the authors wrote. "It is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble."


http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/zombies/

|8.17.09 @ 6:27PM|#

"one suspects that Walker would have had no trouble celebrating her as an 'artist/politician.'"

We're lucky she isn't lumped into the Whole Foods boycott for such heresies!

Paul|8.17.09 @ 6:37PM|#

Is... that woman... is she... yes, she's actually smoking!

Paul|8.17.09 @ 6:39PM|#

How can a man be free without his flat-screen? I ask you!

You're on to something. I have no flat screen tv, and I feel particularly un-free. Hmm...

db|8.17.09 @ 6:40PM|#

Does her hand gesture mean anything in particular? That's a very unique way of holding a cigarette. Just wondering.

|8.17.09 @ 6:41PM|#

Looks like she could kick Ayn Rand's ass, too. 'Course, then Ms. Rand would thank her for it.

Anonymous|8.17.09 @ 7:07PM|#

Does her hand gesture mean anything in particular?

Be Seeing You?

Brian Lockwood|8.17.09 @ 7:43PM|#

Does her hand gesture mean anything in particular?

Racist. Can't a Black woman hold her hand in a peculiar position without you thinking its a gang sign?

|8.17.09 @ 7:56PM|#

Years ago in Northern Florida I had black neighbors and co-workers. Seems to me Hurston captured the vernacular about as well as can be expected without resorting to phonetic script.

Booker T. Washington|8.17.09 @ 8:04PM|#

Zora Neale Hurston: "America's favorite black conservative"

Excuse me?!

nj|8.17.09 @ 8:54PM|#

Nothing really conservative about Hurston. She was a libertarian. Oh and she also happen to be anti-war, her views on American foreign policy would never get her on Fox News.

JB|8.17.09 @ 8:58PM|#

'Free money for darkies!'

'Free leashes for darkies!'

Same thing, but they just don't have the same appeal.

What they really need is a Joker to sell them.

db|8.17.09 @ 9:48PM|#

Racist. Can't a Black woman hold her hand in a peculiar position without you thinking its a gang sign?

I know you meant this in a trolling, "ironic" fashion, but please. Fuck off.

seriously|8.17.09 @ 11:15PM|#

when will black people WAKE UP? (disclaimer: i'm black)

|8.18.09 @ 6:56AM|#

"America's favorite black conservative"

I thought that was Fred Sanford.