Compare and Contrast 2 articles - Essay Example

The presence of God in African culture was discussed in both texts. It can be regarded that the influence of God in the Black culture is very much apparent and extensively discussed in both of the essays. The indispensability of the force of a higher being and how it shapes the everyday existence of the Black people can be perceived in the articles. The virtue of the people and how it can be seen as an integral part of their art and their culture is reoccurring. Senghor regards the relationship between God and Africans and how this translates into their art.

This he argues is the connection of man and God. There is quite evidently the interdependence gravitates man toward such force and this compels him to revitalize his being by recreating it through art. “So God tired of all the possibilities that remained confined within Him, unexpressed, dormant, and as if dead. And God opened His mouth, and he spoke at length a word that was harmonious and rhythmical” (p. 49). Similarly, Du Bois reinforces the concept of a singular world without boundaries because all are created by one God.

Yet out of this, he clarifies that there does exist a classification of races. “There does not stand today upon God’s earth a race more capable in muscle, in intellect, in morals, than the American Negro” (p, 13). This clearly indicates the significance of God in the lives of Black people, an influence that cannot be dismissed. (2) Senghor recognizes the influence of the Negro in civilization while Du Bois only assumes its part. By direct content of the essay, Senghor’s ‘Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century’ discusses the gist of Negritude and its meaning.

It is as he describes it, a modern humanism. The Negro had influenced artists such as Picasso and Braque when they discovered African art. Simultaneously, he argues that it played its part in the Revolution of 1889 though he recognizes that the same would have ensued whether or not Africa had taken its part on it (p. 46). The word Negritude suggests the evolution of the culture not only as an American concept but as a global one. In contrast, Du Bois did not actively identify Africa’s participation in history.

He instead presumed the contribution that Negroes will make when he preemptively rejects his vices which were becoming more and more imminent such as his criminal tendencies, diseases and sexual impurities. In the same light, he includes as the first item in his ‘Academy Creed’ the declaration “We believe that the Negro people, as a race, have a contribution to make to civilization and humanity, which no other race can make” (p. 13). (3) Race distinction was a positive topic of both essays.

This was clearly a palpable core topic of the two articles. There was a distinction among races that must be tackled at the beginning to anchor the main theses of the readings. The faithful analysis of a race and how it relates to the others is the anticipated context that authors of this predisposition are to focus on. The material relevance of races in general was palpable throughout their compositions. Du Bois even went so far as to describe the different physical characteristics of each race.

He also listed the dominant races and enumerated eight. Suffice to say that the list is not exactly complete in its global sense. There was also mention that physical feature is not necessarily accurate as features relative to one may be found in another. Senghor then undertakes a more global approach to these distinctions. He easily dismisses racialism as a less important context in his discourse. Instead, he focuses on the substance of Negritude not only as a term but as ontology or deductively as a philosophy.

Bibliography Du Bois, W.E. Burghardt. "The Conservation of Races." The American Negro Academy Occassional Papers (1897): 3-14. Senghor, Leopold Sedar. "Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century." (1966): 45-54.