The Race-Consciousness of Alain Locke

Abstract

VEN TODAY WHEN THERE are laws to protect the civil rights of the individual, the ogre of racism is still powerful enough to make the blacks conscious of their color. In Alain Locke's time, the race-consciousness of blacks was exacerbated because of legalized discrimination, because, everywhere, color was the password. Claude McKay realized, to his dismay, that not even in Russia could he escape the issue of race. But the term race-consciousness is used here in a much deeper sense. It denotes not simply the individual's awareness of his ethnicity, but a concern on his part to promote the well-being of his race such that advantages may be maximized and disadvantages minimized, at the very least, if not eradicated. This definition implies the individual's sense of obligation to his group, an attitude which may elicit a partisan type of behavior towards that group in particular. In coming to grips with Alain Locke's race-consciousness, some of the questions that will be addressed in this discussion are: How concerned was Locke to promote the interests of his race? How much effort did he make to increase the advantages of Negroes? Was he at all partisan to Negroes as a group? How was his attitude towards black people affected by his philosophical idealism? In an attempt to assess Locke's race-consciousness, emphasis will be placed on his literary and philosophical writings and on his cultural polemics in general. With the publication of The New Negro in 1925, Locke assumed the role of literary critic of Negro artists, encouraging them to change their attitude towards themselves. He admitted that the creative expression of Negroes was hindered not just by the provincialism of cultural immaturity which social conditions imposed upon them, but by a racial sense of subordination. These characteristics, he believed, engendered in Negroes self-pity through sentimental appeal to hortatory moralizing values which were antagonistic to spiritual freedom, the vitality of independence, pride and the self-respect which hurls defiance at the limitations of prejudice.' But he urged Negro artists not to allow the fetters of discrimination to shackle their minds or