The Negro Artist and the Racial Manor: Infants of the Spring and the Conundrum of Publicity

Abstract

Somehow, somewhere, black writers and creators had lost control of their subjects and, with them, some of Harlem Renaissance. (Mumford 155) In a recent essay on critical reception of Jennie Livingston's acclaimed documentary Paris Is Burning (1991), Philip Brian Harper proposes that subversive edge film would seem to promote is, in fact, anything but subversive. Arguing that cultural capital that minority drag queens acquire through their filmed performances is predicated upon loss of their agency and loss of their privacy, Harper convincingly suggests that Livingston's subjects are wholly dependent upon cinematic medium for public recognition. In effect, queens are the product of a discursive process over which they have no control. Hence what critics have often considered to be drag queens' personal subversion of gender norms is, instead, inextricably tied to one person who controls, edits, and manipulates their representations--Livingston, director (55). This scenario, it seems, is far from unique. In fact, problematic of privacy, property, and subject position that Harper discovers at work in House of Xtravaganza can also be found in another locale, namely Niggerati Manor, setting of Wallace Thurman's 1932 roman clef Infants of Spring. Like Harper's subversive edge, Infants of Spring too reveals just how little control minority subjects actually have over their own representations. After residents of Niggerati Manor, an apartment colony of Harlem's bohemian artists, throw a wild rent party, culminating in what can only be called an interracial sex orgy, Dr. Parkes, a thinly veiled caricature of Alain Locke, comes knocking at Manor's door. Dismayed by Manor's decadence, Dr. Parkes informs Ray, a thinly veiled portrait of Thurman, that press will no longer turn a blind eye to house's prurient behavior. In fact, editorials in newspapers such as The New York Call have righteously proclaimed that these young people should be brought to their senses. They should be made to realize futility and danger of path they had chosen, rosy path to hell. They should be taken aside and reasoned with[;] then if this failed light of publicity should be shed upon their activities and their innate viciousness and duplicity exposed to world. Raymond laughed as he finished reading. Surely you don't take this tripe seriously? It's not a matter of taking it seriously, Dr. Parkes answered solemnly. It's a matter of protecting yourself from unnecessary attacks on your reputation. This is a new day in history of our race. Talented Negroes are being watched by countless people, and black, to produce something new and something tremendous. They are waiting for you to prove yourselves worthy so they can help you. Scandal stories in newspapers certainly won't influence public favorably. My habits and my life are my own business. I intend to live just as I please, regardless of yellow journalism, of a public which might offer me material aid should I, in their opinion, prove myself worthy. Raymond's words were crisp and angry. (197-98) This impassioned exchange suggests links among publicity, privacy, and New Negro artist that I will be tracing throughout this essay. Though subject of their fiery debate is ostensibly Manor's wild reputation, conversation between Ray and Dr. Parkes is also a battle over what exactly a literary public sphere should be. Dr. Parkes sees presentation of private personality within literary public sphere as an integral part of New Negro project. Thus Manor's party animals had better shape up and fly right or else they will lose public's favor. Ray, however, insists that one's private biography has nothing to do with literary public sphere; Negro artist should never have to submit to white light of publicity. …