Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-12
ny DANIEL REED

hI DAN1EL REED
Cwho Dramatized Julia Peterkins NOVEL;
NEARLY everybody thinks he can do
Negro dialect. Everybody has his pet
"darky" story.
But speech OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
telling us now that the average person
don't know nuthin'" about black
speech. They tell us that II the white
man could leave the blacks entirely
alone for 500 years there would be a
Negro language as formally distinctive
as any other language on the globe, a
prospect which will never, IN the face
of things, materialize. For the black
man is so eminently initiative, so easily
affected by the manners and customs
around him, he has as many exterior
characteristics as there are localities
where he thriveS. And he thrives every
where.
No wonder then there Is alarm
Alarm lest the few remaining examples
of pure African speech and fundamen-
tai characteristics be lost by the steady
absorption Of the Negroes by the
whites. This alarm sounded by the
scholars has spread to very wide
number of people in the world, and has
created an interest in Negro expression
in all sorts of formS-Negro plays,
Negro songs. Negro dances, Negro lore,
Negro everything.
This has been called by some one
"the black vogue" The highbrows revel
In 1t, and just everyday people join
the parade and tag along. Few people
whites-can resist it.
There is a strange magic in the
strictly basic emotion of the Negro, an
irresistible rhythm. 1t may lie in the
savage Indulgence of his spiritual and
sensual appetites, or 1t may result
from his ability to detach himself from
the actual and soar in world of glorl-
fled imagination. Then, too, the true
Negro spirit knows few restraints, few
spiritual handicaps. 1t can say got
wings-You got wings-All Gawd's
chillen got wings!" and wings are
there. Another time it sings-"Dis ole
worr can do me no harml" and there
Is an immediate emancipation from all
bondage release from all human
tangles.
The black "frees" himself utterly in
his esthetic indulgences. The conven-
tionalized white man succumbs to this
freeing" charm because 1t gives him
such an immediate escape from himself
and his very personal world. The secret,
then, Of "black magic" Is in its de-
tachment-its sublimation.
buI CIllS DlaCk vogue mas us Qan-
gers. It encourages and INDUCES a great
deal of black expression that is more
! a dirty white than the true color.
1t permits q pseudo and synthetic
article to pass for the real thing too
often. The pure Afric color is so
very rich in itself 1t becomes dull with
any blending or adulteration, and as
flavor it simply will not mix.
First of all to suffer by white hand
ling is the Negro dialect" itself. Our
burnt cork minstrel man gave US a
dialect impression that has for so long
stood as the standard Of Negro speech.
No Negro ever talked this way, but the
bulk of white theater audiences didn't
know that. But, at last, an honest
rendering is being given the various
reproductions of "black speech" in this
country. And audiences are rapidly be-
coming discriminating and exacting.
True, the real Afric speech and dia-
lects can not be generally used in the
theater where a large public attends.
No white man or Northern Negro would
understand what the average back
woods darby was saying If they heard
him "as is" So there has to be a
modification Of his speech, modifica-
ton based on the real. It must be sug-
gestive Of the actual intonal quality,