This is to say the Afro-
American characteristics which have been generally thought of as
being African and primitive--his naivety, his exuberance and his
spontaneity--are, in reality, his response to his American
experience and not a part of his African heritage. They are to be
understood as the African's emotional reaction to his American
ordeal of slavery. Out of this environmental along with its
suffering and deprivation, has evolved an Afro-American culture.
LeRoi Jones, the contemporary poet, playwright, and jazz critic,
points out in "Blues People" that the earliest Negro contributions
to formal art did not reflect this genuine Afro-American culture.
It was only with the emergence of the "New Negro" and the Negro
Renaissance that this folk culture entered the mainstream of the
art world. Previously, those Negroes who had gained enough
education to participate in literary creation generally strove to
join the American middle class, and tried to disavow all connections
with their lower class background. in doing this, they were only
following the same route as that pursued by other ethnic minorities
in America.
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