Consumerism Taking Over Harlem

Before Harlem’s public life was controlled by consumerism, there was democratic interaction by citizens. Chandler Owens, an African American writer and socialist, believed that cabarets invoked self expression and liberation. He wanted them incorporated into Harlem’s public life. However, other citizens were afraid that their community was going to become the central place for “entertainment and profit” (312). These citizens were afraid that their neighborhood was going to become a place solely for the purpose of making money. In the last paragraph of page 312 to the last paragraph of page 313 of Kevin Mattson’s “The Struggle for an Urban Democratic Public: Harlem in the 1920s” Mattson makes the argument that not only citizens, but also intellectuals came together to fight against issues that they believed were detrimental to their community. He argues that their battle against cabaret had everything to do with their morality and their “balance between rights and duties” (314) and nothing to do with Victorian prudery as Chandler Owen believed.

Evidence of these arguments is given throughout the paragraphs. The cabarets not only brought money to Harlem, but also illegal alcohol and offensive advertisements. Mattson reveals that the citizens of Harlem “organized around these issues” (313). They gathered together to hold public meetings to talk about the action they needed to take to salvage their community. Mattson also mentions Edgar Grey who was a respected writer for the Amsterdam News and against cabarets. Grey, as an intellectual, did not fight back against Owen’s notion that those for cabarets just wanted to feel freedom and those who were against cabarets were basing their feelings on Victorian values. Grey founded his a...

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...essage in a more believable manner (The Harlem Renaissance, n.d.)

In just a few paragraphs Mattson provides concrete evidence for his overall argument by creating more specific arguments and by using evidence from sources from the 1920s. In the three short paragraphs found on pages 312 to 314 he proves that before consumerism took over, Harlem was a place of strong democratic debate by citizens. He illustrates how passionately people gathered to educate themselves on issues that would affect them. His readers realize that without this communication public space is just a place where strangers pass each other by. The democratic interactions created much needed unity among neighbors, but the story of Harlem presented in this text shows how consumer culture and corporate power eventually takes over making Harlem a “playground for a new urban consumer ethic” (292).