Prompt #3: Innovative Analysis

When certain controversial topics come up, such as racism, the same areas are discussed over and over. What both Hurston and Langston Hughes do to make their approaches innovative is to take new approaches that have never really been considered before. Hughes discusses racism in "Bop," through a conversation about black music actually being spawned from racism. IT is not a new concept to discuss how whites did not understand or appreciate early black music, but Hughes goes so far as to say that they didn't understand because they did not understand what is was like to beaten because of your color. The idea that black music comes as a result of racism is also not really new, after all the first black music was the spirituals that slaves sang in the fields. However, this approach gives racism a much more active role, saying that the sounds of a club hitting a black man's head created the sounds of Be-Bop. Hurston also uses music to illustrate the barrier between blacks and whites. Although she does not say that black music was created from racism, she does use the same idea that whites cannot appreciate it the same way blacks can. In the scene at the jazz bar, her white friend enjoys the music, but his quiet finger-tapping does not compare to the blast of primal emotions that Hurston feels when she listens to jazz. Just like in Hughes's example, whites may like black music, but because they cannot truly grasp where it came from, whether from police beatings or inspired by African tribal music, they cannot fully appreciate it like blacks can. By using music to illustrate the difference in both the origins of whites and blacks, and their vastly different experiences, Hughes and Hurston create and innovative approach to racism that goes beyond just the physical differences.