Heroic "hussies" and "brilliant queers": genderracial resistance in the works of Langston Hughes

African American Review, Fall, 1994 by Anne Borden

That little Negro's married and got a

kid.

Why does he keep foolin' around

Marie? ...

Why don't she get a boy-friend

I can understand--some decent

man?

to which a mother's voice replies:

Did it ever occur to you, boy,

that a woman does the best she can?

and, in response, a man sitting on the stoop comments:

So does a man. (Selected 224-25)

In "Same in Blues," Hughes again expresses gender dialogue in the Black community, focusing on the frustration a man feels at not being able to fulfill the male-ascribed role of provider, because of racial and economic conditions:

Lulu said to Leonard

I want a diamond ring.

Leonard said to Lulu

You won't get a goddamn thing!

There's a certain

amount of nothing

in a dream deferred.

Daddy, daddy, daddy,

All I want is you.

You can have me, baby--

but my lovin' days is through.

A certain

amount of impotence

in a dream deferred. (Selected 270)

Leonard wishes to fulfill a masculine role in his relationship, yet he is disempowered because of racism. The second italicized remark expresses feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness caused by this awareness: "You can have me, baby," he states, "but my lovin' days is through."

Male withdrawal from feeling as an expression of hopelessness is challenged by Hughes's female characters. In "Hard Daddy," Hughes invokes the blues to discuss a woman's frustration with her man's response to her tears:

I cried on his shoulder but

He turned his back on me.

Cried on his shoulder but

He turned his back on me.

He said a woman's cryin'

Never gonna bother me.

Though the characters act in typically gender-ascribed ways, Hughes adds a twist at the end of the poem as the female character rebels against her man's hardness with her own fury:

I wish I had wings to

Fly like the eagle flies....

I'd fly on ma man an'

I'd scratch out both his eyes.

(Selected 150)

The destructive potential of masculine and feminine social constructs is addressed in Hughes's work, yet it is not always broken down into a male-female dichotomy, or even into simple notions of the masculine and the feminine. Rather, Hughes identifies a subversive strength in the feminine and a vulnerability intrinsic to masculinity. At times in his work, gender is left entirely ambiguous, broadening the scope of discussion to include masculine and feminine conflicts within one's self.

Hughes and Homosexuality

Hughes's unapologetic discussion of such topics as homosexuality, teenage pregnancy, and prostitution--which earned him the title of "the poet lowrate of Harlem" in the Chicago Whip and "The Sewer Dweller" in the Amsterdam News (Rampersad 140)--promotes dialogue on taboo genderracial issues. Hughes demonstrates polyrhythmic consciousness by placing opposing views together in dialogue. Commonly, there is no clear "right" or "wrong" character; rather, the reader is invited to view the conflict through numerous perspectives simultaneously.

In discussing the genderracial concerns of gay Blacks, for example, Hughes explores racial realities and gender constructs in the Black community which contribute to homophobia. In "Blessed Assurance," Hughes invokes an ironic sympathy with a father who worries that his son is "turning into a queer," while bringing to light contradictions in the father's wishes that his son were more "masculine." The father, John, worries that homosexuality will compound the young man's oppression as a Negro: