Revista de Letras - Utad

300 Orquídea Moreira Ribeiro
wrote in “A Personality Sketch” published in 1960 that, in spite of her “lack of
identity with her race”, Hurston’s “rich heritage cropped out not only in her
personality but more importantly in her writings” (Hurst 1986: 23).
But she also knew what it meant to be discriminated against. During the late
thirties, she had to face the racism and politics of the supervisors of the Works
Progress Administration (WPA), who refused to put her in charge of editing The
Florida Negro, the collection of essays that was part of the Federal Writers’
Project (FWP). Instead she was forced to accept a relief position, when she was
already an accomplished and published writer.
In essays such as “What White Publishers Won’t Print” published in 1950,
“The ‘Pet Negro’ System”, published in 1943, and “Crazy for this Democracy”
published in 1945 she discusses her views on the racial complexities of America.
In “The ‘Pet Negro’ System”, a text about “interracial friendship”, Hurston
explains that whites are only interested in the Negro individual and, therefore,
single out favorite blacks she calls “pet Negroes” for special attention and
privilege: “The South has no interest, and pretends none, in the mass of Negroes
but it is very much concerned about the individual” (Hurston 1995g: 915). The
“pet Negroes” are professionally promoted by their white friends, but the
consideration, “affection” and respect do not “extend to black folk in general”.
In her published novel about white characters, Seraph on the Suwanee (1948),
the “pet Negro” passage is a reiteration of this. This “interracial friendship” is
also referred to in Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) when Janie answers
Tea Cake saying that “De ones (blacks) de white man know is nice colored
folks. De ones he don’t know is bad niggers” (Hurston 1995h: 315).
“Crazy for this Democracy” acknowledges the presence of “numerous Jim
Crow Laws on the statute books of the nation”. Segregation and inequality are
compared to small-pox and this disease is “not peculiar to the South” but has
spread widely. Hurston states that in Canada the racism has changed and that
there are now second-class citizens, so “moving North” will not mean the end of
the social and racial problems. She demands that the Jim Crow Laws be repealed
and that all people be given equal opportunities. She wants to taste democracy!
Zora Neale Hurston knows the publishing world well and in “What White
Publishers Won’t Print” she comments ironically on the financial problems that
affect the writer. If the story “involves racial tension” it will sell well and
publishers are in the business “to make money”. The publishing industry was
uninterested in a romance that did not focus on the race struggle for it did not
appeal to the white audience. This essay conveys a racial message: “minorities
do think, and think about something other than the race problem” and until this
is acknowledged, “it will remain impossible for the majority to conceive of a
Negro experiencing a deep and abiding love and not just the passion of sex”.