In his criticism of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" Richard Wright calls Hurston out for not being political enough and instead contributing to harmful stereotypes of black people. Something that we talked about in class though, is that on some level the mere existence of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" seems to be political. For one, Hurston chooses to focus her novel on the experiences of a strong, independent black woman, and that in and of itself is important. Further, the novel's focus on entirely black people, and on different all-black communities is another aspect that makes it inherently political. Harmen said something in class which I found really interesting. He said that the novel almost resembles some of the romantic novels that we would (and did) read in 19th century literature. But, instead of a cast full of upper class white people, the roles are played by black people. The fact that Hurston is writing what we might consider "normal" literature, but with a focus on black life seems on some level to be inherently political. Even if you don't consider it political, Hurston portrays the feelings, experiences, lives, and communities of specifically black people, and I think that's something that is extremely valuable. After hearing Harmen's comment, something that came to mind was the music video for Jay Z's "Moonlight." The video is 7 minutes long, but there's really only two minutes' worth of actual music. The rest is a scene from Friends, but portrayed entirely by black actors. Everything is the same - the jokes, the dialogue, the laughtrack. The only difference is that all six characters are black. Friends is a classic - it's a hugely famous, beloved American tv show - but it's also undeniably whitewashed, and I would say uncomfortably so (honestly it's arguably one of the whitest shows on television). So, when you replace all of the characters with black actors, - even though it's literally the only difference - it makes a point. I guess that's kind of how I see "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Hurston takes a traditionally whitewashed genre and flips it on its side. Except it's not flipped on its side, it's just normal, at least in the context of the book. That Hurston makes it normal - it's just a woman who is black falling in love and finding her independence and reflecting on her journey - also makes it extremely important in its own right.

But even if the novel wasn't groundbreaking or incredibly valuable from a political standpoint, that shouldn't mean it isn't valuable from a literary standpoint. That's another thing that we've been talking a lot about lately. There's this idea that in order to be a true black writer your work has to be protest literature. As a lot of people have been saying, I definitely think that's unfair. It reminds me of an interview that a comedian named Tiffany Haddish did where someone asked her if she had any ideas on how to advance diversity in Hollywood, to which she responded, 

"Girl, no, I don’t know how to do that, and I didn’t go to college for that. I didn’t go to college at all, nor do I know how to solve problems like that. If you was asking me how to structure a joke, I could help you with that part. But, what you talking about now – I don’t know. I dont know. All I know is how to do my job. That’s somebody else’s job. I don’t know that."

At the end of the day, I definitely think it's important to have opinions and to be political, especially if you have a platform with which to do so. At the same time, I also think that dictating what black artists should or should not portray in their art is completely unproductive. What do you guys think about it? What do you think about Tiffany Haddish's answer?