Through my reading of “The Trials of Phillis Wheatley”, I found the question of authenticity to be particularly evocative. Specifically, how the authenticity of Black art has been historically perceived and subsequently called into question and discounted. In Wheatley’s era, the idea of a young enslaved woman who was capable of writing poetry worthy of critical acclaim was completely antithetical to both the racialized hierarchy of Revolutionary-era America and the foundational assumptions of white supremacy espoused by the elites. Additionally, Wheatley’s writing challenged traditional repressive notions of gender and the role of women in 18th and 19th century America. To the educated white elite like Thomas Jefferson, Wheatley’s assertion of authorship and more fundamentally, her “assertion of Black humanity” was a radical act in and of itself. So radical in fact that a council of said white elite was commissioned to litigate these assertions.
In the centuries following Wheatley’s trial, the legacy of this undermining of the authenticity of African American art is alive and well. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the discussion surrounding genres of music pioneered by Black artists. For example, around the time of its inception and spread in the early decades of the 20th century, jazz was treated as “devil music” and looked down upon by traditional classicists. This lineage of condescension directed towards traditionally black forms of music can be traced through the mid-20th century with the advent of Rock and Roll, and eventually to the final decades of the 20th, into the 21st century with the rise of Hip-Hop. These genres, that were largely dominated by African American musicians in their early stages of development, spent years being dismissed as lacking artistic merit. That is until they were adopted/appropriated by white artists, and made ubiquitous in mainstream society. To a large extent, we see this process unfolding with Hip-Hop in recent decades i.e. Eminem, a White artist, becoming the best selling rapper in a genre that is so intrinsically tied to the Black experience.
Wheatley’s trial can help us understand the context from which centuries of condescension directed towards Black artists and their work stems. She was forced not only to prove her knowledge but to defend the authenticity of her creation. Since then we have witnessed the authenticity of artists like Billie Holiday, Chuck Berry, and Nas, called into question, not because their music lacks merit, but because they were bold enough assert the radical notion that art created by African Americans is worthy of acclaim.
WC: 415
Pledged: Nick DeMaris
Hi Nick! I too have grappled with this history of white folk discrediting black art. As the child of actors, I grew up immersed in a community of artists, so I am particularly troubled by the concept of anyone’s art needing the affirmation of someone else to be considered truly authentic. This questioning of scholarly integrity was utilized to deny Wheatley's assertion of black humanity, her agency in the white male-dominated global milieu of intellectual thought. The lived experiences of black folk are something that white people will never be able to fully understand, so our affirmation of black art has no right, no justification to be what renders it worthy of acclaim. Wheatley "wrote her way to freedom", challenging the pervading theme of commodification, telling her story in order to change her status from object to subject. This trial forced her to seek the approval of her object to subject shift directly from those who objectified her, a thoroughly degrading act.
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