I ASK you to consider, dear reader, this simple poem by Robert Frost. It is neither hard to grasp or difficult to follow:

Into My Own   
 
ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees, 
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, 
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom, 
But stretched away unto the edge of doom. 
 
I should not be withheld but that some day       
Into their vastness I should steal away, 
Fearless of ever finding open land, 
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. 
 
I do not see why I should e’er turn back, 
Or those should not set forth upon my track         
To overtake me, who should miss me here 
And long to know if still I held them dear. 
 
They would not find me changed from him they knew— 
Only more sure of all I thought was true.  

Now I ask you this. Do you know any black person in America who is a devoted fan of Robert Frost or who might recite this poem from memory or even enthusiastically refer to it? Please bear in mind when you answer this that Frost is not a difficult poet. He is no Milton or Spencer.

Here’s another question. Do you know any white person in America who thinks the black author Toni Morrison is one of the greatest authors who ever lived or that Maya Angelou is Frost’s equal? If the answer to this question is yes, and the answer to the first question above is no, why is this so? Let me suggest, blacks are honest about what they like and dislike. They display this honesty all the time. They simply don’t pretend they like what they don’t like and this gives them the freedom of living within their own skins, so to speak. They have no great affection for Robert Frost, and that’s that.

Whites, on the other hand, are utterly deceitful, living in a cloud of self-imposed lies.

Near where I live one of the greatest art collections in America, indeed in the world, is housed in a museum. One Sunday of the month, the museum opens to the public free of charge. Though the city is a majority black population, very few blacks show up at the museum even when it is free. That’s because blacks don’t pretend they like what they don’t like.

If, however, the museum was filled with primitive African art, or perhaps urban graffiti presented as art, whites would pay $20 each to cram its hallways.

                                                        — Comments —

John McNeill writes:

I think your observations are spot on. Even if whites were to attend something explicitly European, like say, a medieval/Renaissance festival, they would explicitly deny any racial and/or cultural pride. And yet the fact that such events are almost always 99.99% white implies that there is some sort of subconscious (or rather heavily suppressed) identification.

The question remains: how do we get whites to value their own identity and heritage?

Laura writes:

The answer to your question is, by convincing them that their heritage won’t survive otherwise.

Sarah writes:

I am white. I am also very interested in anthropology, ancient cultures, and even fascinated by primitive African art. Who wouldn’t want to study what the ancient peoples of Earth were painting on their cave walls or pottery!? Studying diverse forms of art is important. Not all art is of the same quality, obviously. However, I do not believe in drawing an iron curtain down. It is important to study the world and the cultures around us. Your article seemed to imply that black people are less cultured and less intelligent than white people because, as you seem to assert, black people are incapable of loving our dear Mr. Frost . If we draw the lines back down between the races…then we laugh with stupid arrogance into the face of science. The only thing that separates a white person from a black person is one letter of DNA. Apparently, white skin was a mutation, and if you trace your heritage back far enough, you will find that even you have “black” ancestors. I realize that the greatest divide is not found in our DNA at all. Genetically we are more the same than different. The difference is in our broad cultural identity. This is where people pit the “us against them” argument.

While I am sure you are not advocating racism I do feel that you are trying to tell white people to stand up for white culture and disassociate from other ethnic groups. This thinking is counter productive, and has the potential to be so destructive. Yes, we ought to cherish and preserve the values of our recent ancestors. However, it is small thinking indeed to draw the lines down between blacks and whites. Yes, there are ghettos where the predominate race is black, and yes there are trashy trailer parks where the predominate race is white. Race has nothing to do with it. The real problem is the culture war. I am not a liberal. I am a Christian and lover of science. I am more of a traditionalist in my lifestyle than anything else. I know many college-educated black people who are also lovers of culture. I’ve met black people who love Mozart, play in symphonies, enjoy fine art and cuisine. It is not accurate to refer to all black people as “blacks” and to associate them all with the poor, uneducated people found in ghettos. I’ve met so many ignorant white people who could care less who Robert Frost is. Education and an unquenchable thirst for learning is the key to a better future and a higher culture for us all. The low things found in both white and black culture will be weeded out as every person from every race begins to use his or her mind. The question is…how do we unlock people from their ignorance and invite them into the world of the fascinating?

Laura writes:

The genetic differences are significant. Science has not proved that they are not.

It is important and interesting to study other cultures and I applaud your interest in them. My point is, blacks in general don’t share this fascination.  There’s nothing wrong with their general indifference to Western art. They don’t psychologically identify with it. They don’t feel it contains the story of their past and, yes, they generally don’t have the aptitude for it, though there are many exceptions to this. Many whites don’t appreciate it either, but I don’t think they feel the same distance from it. I’ve met many white people who have no interest in Robert Frost, but I have never met a black person enthusiastic about him or who quotes him the way whites do, say, Langston Hughes. I’m sure there are some.

You say,

“The low things found in both white and black culture will be weeded out as every person from every race begins to use his or her mind.”

The majority of people, both white and black, don’t have an appreciation for high culture. The low things will never be weeded out. But European civilization has produced a high level of artistic creativity and appreciation that is faltering on the rocks of nihilism and multiculturalism, which exalt the inferior and encourage white self-loathing. This worship of the inferior has a corrupting, de-civilizing influence. It seems to explain the ugliness of much of modern art.

I used to think the way you do, but I came to the realization that it doesn’t take much to appreciate great paintings. They are just there, waiting to be loved and honored and understood. Only some fundamental alienation from them, or indiffference to them, keeps people away from great paintings if they are free to the public. The idea that blacks are being prevented by the poverty or by racism from appreciating them is simply not true. And I think it is significant that they do not love these works, which express our collective soul. This means whites must be careful to protect their heritage and not delude themselves into thinking others can have the same love of it. At the same time, I agree with you that it’s important to spread enthusiasm for it and that some blacks are very receptive, but one can only spread that enthusiasm if one is honest about its worth and does not waste effort apologizing for, or disguising, the fact that it is essentally white European culture that one is promoting. 

Buck writes:

Sarah seems to be defending someone from an imagined evil – “human nature.” “I am white” was obviously a truncated declaration. Her actual thought, and a full utterance of it – would be something like: “I am white, but, I’m doing my best to apologize for it and to overcome it,” or “I am white, and I’m not going to take it anymore, and, neither should you!” She says that our white European skin is nothing more than an evolutionary mutation of our “black” skinned ancestory.  

Mutations are variously characterized, often – as disorders or mistakes. If common enough, mutations are viewed as normal variations or polymorphisms. “Although many polymorphisms have no negative effects on a person’s health, some of these variations may influence the risk of developing certain disorders.” Sarah seems to see “whiteness” as a disorder in need of a treatment or of professional management and intervention. Blackness is her healthy standard. 

White guilt is a powerful force that is supplying ample energy to the modern liberal tsunami that is washing over our shores. 

As an aside – I sent a poem by Langston Hughes to someone the other day. I came across it after someone mentioned the spittoons that are now stored in the basement of the US Capitol building. I happened to see them in use, circa 1960.

BRASS SPITOONS

    by Langston Hughes

Clean the spittoons, boy.
Detroit,
Chicago,
Atlantic City,
Palm Beach.
Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a day.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars
Buy shoes for the baby.
House rent to pay.
Gin on Saturday,
Church on Sunday.
My God!
Babies and gin and church
And women and Sunday
All mixed with dimes and
Dollars and clean spittoons
And house rent to pay.
Hey, boy!
A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord.
Bright polished brass like the cymbals Of King David’s dancers,
Like the wine cups of Solomon.
Hey, boy!
A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord.
A clean bright spittoon all newly polished—
At least I can offer that.
Com’mere, boy!

Joe Anonymous writes:

I think you should consider an additional dynamic: 

What about those black folks who actually pretend to like Maya Angelou – or for that matter, Barack Obama? What about those who pretend – who eventually convince themselves – NOT to like Robert Frost, despite initial inclinations? The question is not one of honesty; indeed the question may be one of social survival. My wife taught fifth graders in a tough school, and saw how dissenting interests were punished by peers; politically correct interests, however, provide much material and social benefit later through a pervasive education bureaucracy. And while a white child will not normally be punished by peers for an interest in Robert Frost, he CAN tap into the bureaucracy and the gravy-train by developing or counterfeiting an interest in Maya Angelou – although I would not lay odds in such a beneficiary really being able to quote her, as a true poetry fan would be able to quote a real poet.

And take your hypothetical graffiti exhibit. Yes, pretentious whites would certainly pay money to seek status by pretending to appreciate it, and bring reluctant children in to teach them how to fake appreciating it too; and only the exact same sort of pretentious social-climbers and liberal one-uppers among blacks would attend. There would be no racial difference in dishonesty among those attending, nor a racial difference among those NOT attending in their apathy or disgust. The in-group utterly fails to impress the rest of us – although they are so focused on their own mutual acceptance and their internal “pecking order”, that they hardly notice.

Clem writes:

Laura writes:

This means whites must be careful to protect their heritage and not delude themselves into thinking others can have the same love of it.

Thank you for what you do. This is very well said and one the main reasons I enjoy perusing your site. Sara’s response is the typical Marxist mind set. She obviously has absorbed all the feel-good anti-white rhetoric yet ignores her very eyes, experiences and heritage as being ‘racist.’

Elizabeth Wright writes:

Is this rhetorical question being asked by you, Laura, or by a reader?  I understand the point being made here, but of all poets to  select, this black person has loved Robert Frost since discovering him  as a teenager. There is no pretension required to be touched by his  images of the simplest things around us, as well as his piercing,  understated comments about human beings.  Nor is it pretentious for  any person, of any ethnicity, to be touched by Emily Dickinson or  Christina Rossetti (whose “Birthday” poem I had memorized as a sub- teen).  It’s what reaches you and touches you.  And, of course, you  have to be exposed to begin with.

You mention that Frost (and, by implication, other poets) are not  “difficult” as, say, Spencer or Milton.  Yet, doesn’t even the typical  white have to be schooled in an understanding of history and 
literature, to appreciate such minds?

You’d be surprised at the number of blacks who have sat around and  laughed at Angelou’s ridiculous scribblings, and bemoan the fact that  her stuff is taught in schools as “good” poetry. Look, it’s whites who  are the ones obsessed with rewarding blacks for whatever efforts they make, in order to prove what fine people whites are. It’s whites who  insisted on dropping the standards.

Also, I think that Sarah is off-base about the questioner’s intentions and, unfortunately, so like the typical white, could not resist reaching for the “racism” charge.  I don’t think racism is implied 
all.  The main points are very well put and well taken.

“Whites, on the other hand, are utterly deceitful, living in a cloud  of self-imposed lies.”

Agreed.  And never is this more clearly expressed than in those  museums you mention and here in NYC’s art galleries, etc.

But don’t forget the pretensions among blacks, who, to the outside world, insist on their love of jazz.  Yet, in truth, they have less interest in this music genre than people of other groups.  If the 
college radio stations (Columbia, NYU, Fordham) did not give over some of their time to this music, it would never be heard on the airwaves even here in the Big Apple.  And, believe me, there’s a lot of  pretension not only among whites, but among blacks also, when it comes to that “African art.”

Laura writes:

Yes, the question was from me. I chose Frost precisely because I believe he could be appreciated by blacks.

Elizabeth is correct. Whites lower standards for blacks and expose them excessively to what is black, denying them the fruits of white culture. We don’t see blacks resisting that. We don’t hear them complaining about the inferior in poetry anthologies, just as you don’t see women generally complaining whenever inferior works by women are put aside those by men. But that doesn’t mean that some don’t complain about it or bemoan it. To think of blacks sitting around mocking Maya Angelou, it’s a delightful image. If only they had a voice in America. Who denies them that voice? White and black liberals, for precisely the reasons Elizabeth mentions. There’s nothing to be gained by the liberal establishment in seeing blacks appreciate white art or poetry. It would mean they themselves would be forced to confront their own lack of appreciation for it and would be forced to bow to what is immensely higher and greater than themselves.

Yes, certainly blacks have their own pretensions. Imagine an article in my local paper criticizing blacks for rarely showing up at the art museum when it is free on Sunday. That would be unthinkable because race differences can only be discussed when they point to the victimization or moral superiority of blacks. And, yet such an article might expose blacks to some of their own pretensions and prod more of them to appreciate what is immensely worthy of their appreciation.

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