That Time I Clapped Back at Langston Hughes

I was never 'bout the 'Tragic'

Me, age 3

Even as a child, I balked at the stereotype of the Tragic Mulatto.

It didn’t make sense to me.

And I straight-up resented its implication: that my existence was tragic and my whole life worthless because I was “this close to” but not completely white.

Neither I nor any of the Mixed folks I grew up with seemed the least bit miserable about our ancestry or identities.

I was a young “bookworm”—today I’d be called an avid reader—regularly devouring the works of many fine poets and authors including Langston Hughes, who was one of my favorites.

Langston Hughes honored by a U.S. Postage stamp released February 1, 2002.

So, when I found this poem in a collection of his works, I couldn’t believe it that he, of all people, was promoting that stupid stereotype. Truly I expected much better of him!

I was so offended that I had to write a poetic response:

I dreamed of sending a copy of my outraged verse to him, but he had transitioned to Ancestor the year before.

“Cross” made me so angry because part of what drove my reading was a voracious hunger to find representations of people like me. I viewed the Tragic Mulatto stereotype as a tool of white racism and craved more authentic, nuanced examples of adults who had grappled with some of the same identity dynamics that I was learning to navigate.

So, while I understood that Hughes was literally writing about a reality and perspective that existed from slavery through Jim Crow, that wasn’t what I needed or sought from his amazing writing.

Fortunately, I kept reading his work and he never let me down again.

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