  Cooper calls into question the standpoint from which such dissertations are written and argues that the Negro has the right to identify the shortcomings of such analyses. The issues raised by Cooper here concern not only the standpoint from which these materials are produced, but also the inauthenticity of the product itself.  This inauthenticity leads to a mass production of images that “portray colored persons only as bootblacks and hotel waiters, grinning from ear to ear and bowing and curtseying for the extra tips” (VAJC, 149). As a result of this false yet dominating image, many have not seen, “and therefore cannot be convinced that there exists a quiet, self-respecting, dignified class, …of cultivated tastes and habits…” among Negroes, (VAJC, 149). Even more impressive than Cooper’s ability to advance issues of standpoint theory and authenticity, is her insight about the producers of these controling negative images. Cooper asserts that rather than producing an accurate picture of the Black man, these portraits only reveal the consciousness (or subconsciousness) of the white man producing the images.  According to Cooper, the authentic image of the Negro has not yet been produced. She assets, “an authentic portrait, at once aesthetic and true to life, presenting the Black man as a free American citizen, not just the humble slave of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—but the man, divinely struggling and aspiring yet tragically warped and distorted by the adverse winds of circumstance, has not yet been painted…that canvass awaits the brush of the colored man himself” (VAJC, 158).