“The self image of the Afro-Americans in both types of exceptionalism tradition is one of pride, self congratulation, and often heroism. Afro-Americans are considered to be more humane, meek, kind, creative, spontaneous, and non-violent than members of other racial groups.
They are also less malicious, mendacious, belligerent, bellicose, and avaricious. This tradition posits Afro-American superiority”
James Weldon Johnson gave the strong exceptionalist tradition new life with his notion of the unique creativity of Afro-Americans. In his famous preface to his well-known anthology of Afro-American poetry, he claimed that the true greatness of a civilization should be measured by its creative powers in the arts. He then added,
“The Negro has already proved the possession of these powers by being the creator of the only things artistic that have yet sprung from American soil and been universally acknowledged as distinctive American products."
He attributed these creative powers to “racial genius of Afro-Americans”.
… us who are warmed by the poetic blood of Africa, mother of races-rhythmic beating heart of the world.
And what did this racial genius consist of? Like Dubois, it was a God given (or nature given) spirit in the pietistic and primitive Christianity of the rural Afro-American.
The majority of literary works during the Harlem Renaissance mark a shift in the strong exceptionalist tradition. The urban setting and the close interaction with the alienated figure groping for the vitality of “noble savages” and new content to Afro-American uniqueness: the primitivism of Afro-Americans manifest in their uninhibited and spontaneous behavior.
Cornel West - The Four Traditions of Response / Exceptionalist Tradition
- The contemporary comparison exposes the dynamism to be found in the current experience of the Black Being, still fighting off the new iteration of “alienated figures”, still groping for the vitality of the “noble savage”. Crushed under the weight of a racially hegemonic state of surveillance and negritudal deficiency.
-Yogabrofessor
Montmarquet, J. A., & Hardy, W. H. (2000). Reflections An Anthology of African American Philosophy. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA65356223
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