According to <em>"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain"</em>, one powerful way that the standard of whiteness affects African Americans is through the unconscious.
In the poem, the author states this idea very well at the beginnig of the poem when he says: <em>"...I want to be a poet, not a Negro poet..." </em>One can interpret that the poet has a conscious desire to be white or an unconscious desire not to be black.
The use of whiteness as a standard of beauty and wellness is another powerful way to impact African Americans.
<em>Langston Hughes</em> wrote "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" in 1926.
In the poem, Hughes wrote about the lives of Black People in Balck neighbourhoods in the United States.
