The "Pet Negro" system

by Zora Neale Hurston

SOC031000

13 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 18, 2019

About the author

Novels, including Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), and nonfiction writings of American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston give detailed accounts of African American life in the South.

In 1925, Hurston, one of the leaders of the literary renaissance, happening in Harlem, produced the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman shortly before she entered Barnard College. This literary movement developed into the Harlem renaissance.

Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic training to document African American folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men alongside fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God . She also assembled a folk-based performance dance group that recreated her Southern tableau with one performance on Broadway.

People awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to Hurston to travel to Haiti and conduct research on conjure in 1937. Her significant work ably broke into the secret societies and exposed their use of drugs to create the Vodun trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, then at the University of Chicago.

In 1954, the Pittsburgh Courier assigned Hurston, unable to sell her fiction, to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local lottery racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail , a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie.

Reviews

[Dr. Miles Davis]

The book offers an allegorical snippet of relationships between Black and White America that is as relevant in 2026 as when it was first published in 1943. This book is not just meant to be read; it should be reflected on.

[Craig Stafford]

Short and Powerful!

Hate it or love it this is still how America works to this day! Even with race relations being so divided today, (like they have always been) this philosophy rings true

[Amberlyr]

Uncomfortable but nesasary read

I'm uncomfortable with this coming up in my read section without an explanation, so here we go.
This was written by a young black woman in the 1930 or 20s, about the backwards "pet" system where certain racist white people would befriend a back person so they could be like "look, I'm not racist, I have a black friend" and keep them around to get gossip or a heads up from the other side.

Very short but interesting in a social behavior/psychology way.

[Tamaca Harris]

Still relevant

This was such a good, quick, and easy read; but unfortunately the subject matter is as relevant now as it was then. So many people with "pet Negroes" who swear they can't be racist, and this is why. The fact that they care for one Black person, in their minds, exempts them from judgment on how they treat the rest! I'm so glad I found this book!

[VJ]

Pick Me Negroes

Here is one origin of the concept of "pick-me negroes" that I have heard used in 21st C American discourse. Short, tongue firmly in cheek, Zora Neale Hurston gives a description of how the concept was embodied in the Old South (and North).

[Jen Juice]

Short and Sweet

The beginning was a little confusing but after that it all came together short and sweet. This book is only 13 pages long so def an easy read. Zora’s writing is elegant as usual def a short and sweet explanation of black and white relations .

[gnarlyhiker]

ha! clarence thomas comes to mind

good luck

[TJM]

So matter of fact and simply expressed, it reads like a children’s story.
Remnants of such a system may still exist today, in some form.
Great little read.

[Mike]

You can't teach this in grad school anymore

[Muhammad]

It's still a thing. Shout out to Al Sharpton and his replacement Van Jones!

[Tina Benagh]

Lovely

She is remarkably perceptive in addressing a rarely acknowledged situation. I have lived this, but never thought to see it explored with such kindesss.

[Joseph Patton]

Very interesting

I was well aware of the relationship but didn't associate it to the terminology of pet negro nor it functioning as a system.

[Parkway]

Where’s the lie? Straight facts based on my experience.

[Carol Wise]

Thus spake Zora

I love her so much. If all people would read this little book and heed her big words, our country, and maybe the whole planet would be so much more liveable.

[Michelle]

It was a short read, but very informative on the subject.

[Tony Mirabel]

The short stories are entertaining and shed light on a very real race dynamic between black and white people in America. As a man of color, I am guilty of conveniently allowing myself to become a pet in the past. To be fair, most black people also have a pet white person in our lives. on a more serious note; Hurston sheds light on a form of oppression which is often disguised as good manners and deeds. Given the history of Africans and Europeans in America; the dysfunctional social relations that ensued were inevitable. Things have gotten considerably better since Jim Crow, but we all still have alot to learn.