Anti-assimilationist art went out of print while the ‘sobbing school’ sold books

Evidence

Hurston did not need to respond to these Black male critics. “I am not tragically colored,” she had already told the world. “There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.” But the sobbing school was selling out books. By the end of the decade, Their Eyes Were Watching God was out of print, and Hurston had to find work as a maid. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 893

Categorization

• XREF: Market evidence supporting Kendi’s claims that racist ideas sell — connects to the argument that discrimination/self-interest shaped which Black art got published.