Read the excerpt then answer the question: Excerpt from "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" by Langston Hughes
..And so the word white comes to be unconsciously a symbol of all virtues. It holds for the children beauty, morality, and
money. The whisper of "I want to be white" runs silently through their minds. This young poet's home is, I believe, a fairly
typical home of the colored middle class. One sees immediately how difficult it would be for an artist born in such a
home to interest himself in interpreting the beauty of his own people. He is never taught to see that beauty. He is taught
rather not to see it, or if he does, to be ashamed of it when it is not according to Caucasian patterns."
In at least 150 words, discuss the unconscious symbol of whiteness that is examined in "The Negro Artist and the Racial
Mountain." Where does it come from, and why does it have the potential to be so damaging?