Question

In her essay "What White Publishers Won’t Print," Zora Neale Hurston argues that publishers will not print stories about educated minorities because readers will not believe that these people even exist. Would the person that Countee Cullen describes in his poem "For a Lady I Know" be similar to the kind of reader Hurston writes about? Provide textual evidence for you answer.

Answer 1

Hurston and Cullen both address the issue of racial discrimination in their literary works. They describe the conceited and condescending attitude of white Americans toward minority races, especially African Americans. These writers felt that white Americans not only considered themselves superior to African Americans but also thought that African Americans were incapable of having intellectual and creative skills.

In her essay "What White Publishers Won’t Print" Hurston describes how Anglo-Saxons think that they know everything about African Americans and show no interest in learning anything about their "internal lives and emotions." She emphasizes how white Americans have formed certain common stereotypes regarding nonwhite Americans, which is why they fail to comprehend and appreciate the true skills of African Americans and other racial minorities:

I have been amazed by the Anglo-Saxon's lack of curiosity about the internal lives and emotions of the Negroes, and for that matter, any non-Anglo-Saxon peoples within our borders, above the class of unskilled labor.

Similarly, in his poem "For a Lady I Know," Cullen emphasizes the arrogant and self-important attitude that white Americans have toward African Americans. He uses imagery of cherubs in heaven to describe how a lady belonging to the upper class thinks that her "poor black" servants would wait on her even after death. Cullen shows that people from the upper class (white Americans) believe that Africans Americans can never have a bright future.

From her superior attitude toward African Americans, it is clear that the lady that Cullen describes in his poem could belong to the group of readers who would not be interested in reading stories about educated minorities.

Step-by-step explanation:

From Plato :)

Answer 2

Yes, the lady in Cullen's poem is a deeply prejudiced and ignorant person, who doesn't want to really get to know black people as they are. Those prejudices seem to be so deeply engraved in collective memory that black people are associated with slavery, menial jobs, and intellectual inferiority. Hurston argues that media have the power to solve this problem. Hurston writes: "It is assumed that all non-Anglo-Saxons are uncomplicated stereotypes. Everybody knows all about them. They are lay figures mounted in the museum where all may take them in at a glance. They are made of bent wires without insides at all. So how could anybody write a book about the non-existent?"

Similarly, in Cullen's short and poignant poem, the lady believes that even in heaven black people will be assigned the same kind of duty that they have on Earth, in her opinion. It's as if they aren't capable of doing anything else, nor are they entitled to anything else above that.