George Schuyler: Writer, Social Critic, Iconoclast

George Samuel Schuyler (1895-1977) was an essayist, novelist, and journalist for The Pittsburgh Courier, known for his unapologetic conservative and assimilationist views concerning race relations. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Schuyler grew up in Syracuse, New York. The author ascended from a long line of free blacks, some of whom, he claimed, had participated in the Revolutionary War. This heritage appears to have contributed to a sense of pride and confidence Schuyler possessed and articulated throughout his literary career. Schuyler's conservative leanings and active participation in the anti-Communism campaigns of the McCarthy era provoked controversy among African Americans who sometimes considered Schuyler not just an iconoclast, but a "traitor" (1220). Yet, Schuyler is heralded to this day for his literary contributions to the developing racial politics of the 20th century.

Schuyler's novel, Black No More cast a satirical, yet critical eye on the preoccupations of race and color consciousness that Schuyler observed within and without the black community. The novel's protagonist, Dr. Crookman, was "a black man who has devised a process for the blanching of dark skins, the tale is a trenchant commentary on race relations in America but cuts as mercilessly against blacks as it does against whites" (Gates et al. 1220). Though Black No More is chiefly considered by literary historians as an early 20th century satire, Schuyler's novel heralds the early stirrings among African American writers to engage the themes of Science Fiction and futurism to construct trenchant social critique.

The terse wit and biting commentary that Schuyler deploys in Black No More is equally evident in his critical essay, "The Negro-Art Hoakum," which was published in Nation in 1926. In it, Schuyler levels a caustic attack on the notion of a uniquely "Negro" art as postulated by many of the black artists, critics, patrons and commentators of the Harlem creative scene. To Schuyler, to note that art produced by African Americans is unique or distinct in nature from European models is to suggest that it is necessarily inferior. This essay sparked an historic exchange between its author and poet Langston Hughes, who penned a forceful rebuttal in his "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain." In light of DuBois and Locke, how do Schuyler's views on the nature and future of African American aesthetic forms fit within this discussion?

Quotes:

"New art forms expressing the 'peculiar' psychology of the Negro were about to flood the market. In short, the art of Homo Africanus was about to electrify the waiting world. Skeptics patiently waited. They still wait" (Schuyler 1221).

"As for the literature, painting, and sculpture of Aframericans--such as there is--it is identical in kind with the literature, painting, and sculpture of white Americans: that is, it shows more or less evidence of European influence" (1221).

"Negroes and whites from the same localities in this country talk, think, and act about the same. Because a few writers with a paucity of themes have seized upon imbecilities of the Negro rustics and clowns and palmed them off as authentic and characteristic Aframerican behavior, the common notion that the black American is so 'different' from his white neighbor has gained wide currency. The mere mention of the word "Negro" conjures up in the average white American's mind a composite stereotype of Bert Williams, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom, Jack Johnson, Florian Slappey, and the various monstrosities drawn by the cartoonists" (1222).

"One contemplates the popularity of the Negro-art hokum and murmurs, 'How come?'" (1223).