Beb Vuyk’s “Black Power” (1955)

Less than a month after Wright left Indonesia, Beb Vuyk published a review of BlackPower, Wright’s African travelogue, which had been the subject of an exchange between Wright and Vuyk during an informal meeting while Wright was in Indonesia. Vuyk distrusted Black Power’s premise of an emotional connection between Wright and the land of his ancestors, averring that Wright had no greater ties to the Gold Coast than those of white Americans to the European countries they visited in large numbers in search of their ancestors’ birthplaces. Cautioning readers to be aware that Wright viewed Africa through glasses that framed the way he saw things, Vuyk introduced a metaphor that set the stage for Mochtar Lubis’s later criticism that Wright had looked at Indonesia through “colored glasses.” In Vuyk’s view Wright was insufficiently aware of the dangers posed by Kwame Nkrumah’s efforts to instill a “national super-belief” among his people.