ABSTRACT
In "Characteristics of Negro Expression", Zora Neale Hurston argues that African American expression is highly original and creative. This expression is fundamentally rooted in what she calls "mimicry". For Hurston, "mimicry" does not indicate the simple copying of actions taken from non-African American cultures. In Hurston's account, Jack Goldstone is "the greatest cultural hero of the South", because he allegorizes African American culture as a whole, relying on his adaptability to survive amidst an antagonistic culture. Hurston's description of African American imitation involves a number of consequences. These begin with her radical redefinition of what counts as "originality". Indeed, Hurston points out that the first examples of human expression are untraceable. As a result, all art necessarily works through creative imitation. Hurston finds the widespread "contention that the Negro imitates from a feeling of inferiority" completely wrong. African Americans engage in imitation not because they want to belong to the culture they imitate.
