True AllegianceGlitter, beauty pageants, pom-poms, ballerinas and batons: what's a girl to do when these are the highest expectations of her peers? In the school system I grew up in, these were the expectations for girls to be popular and accepted. Ever since I was in kindergarten, soccer was what I loved to do, however, I constantly felt the need to conform to the standards set by my peers. After reading four works of literature by Baraka, Hughes, DuBois, and Lorde, I remembered the time when I felt the pressure to be like everyone else. Baraka, DuBois, Hughes, and Lorde incorporate similar ideas into their literature on the issue of artists who fail to stay true to their identities due to lust for popular culture. These ideas are still relevant today and not just for artists but for anyone who feels the need to conform to social norms and abandon their individuality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayThe fear of being oneself in American society presents itself as a problem for the artists of all four literary works, and this Fear is still relevant today. . In his essay The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, Hughes begins by criticizing a young poet who desires to suppress his blackness in order to have his art socially accepted. Hughes goes on to say that he was “sorry that the young man said that, for no great poet was ever afraid to be himself” (Jarrett 210). Audre Lorde makes a similar point about overcoming fear in her essay Poetry Is Not a Luxury. Lorde wrote that women often remain silent because of fear, but poetry can help women overcome this fear (Jarrett 762). Audre Lorde's essay contrasts with Hughes's in that she addresses primarily black women, while Hughes addresses black artists as a whole. However, the underlying meaning of these essays turns out to be quite similar. Hughes and Lorde are essentially saying that artists must embrace who they are without fearing cultural expectations. Tyler, The Creator, an African-American rapper and music executive, mentioned in a 2015 interview that "artists today are afraid to be themselves when they write music" (Walsh). WEB DuBois also raises the issue that black artists tend to be afraid to be themselves in Criteria of Negro Art. The criteria he writes about can be interpreted as truth; he believes that all black art must be truthful. Black artists are afraid to truly be themselves because they fear their art will be rejected. It is because of this fear that black artists feel pressured to conform to the standards of white art, but it is only when they are completely honest with themselves and resist the urge to conform to American standards that they produce art that is faithful to them. Like previous artists, Baraka addresses this question in his essay The Myth of Negro Literature. His argument regarding black artists is that they will never succeed until they accept who they are as black people. I believe that these black people mentioned by Baraka are so adapted to being like white people that they fear that any true black part of themselves will never be accepted. Although I am not a black artist, I personally understand the pressures that American society places on any person and the constant self-examination required to remain true to oneself. Growing up, I always felt the pressure of.