According to this excerpt, why is it important that the near intellectuals expose themselves to Bessie Smith, paul robeson, and other african american artists? excerpt from "the negro artist and thr racial mountain".

The exact excerpt is:

Let the blare of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith singing Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near intellectual until they listen and perhaps understand. Let Paul Robeson singing "Water Boy," and Rudolph Fisher writing about the streets of Harlem, and Jean Toomer holding the heart of Georgia in his hands, and Aaron Douglas drawing strange black fantasies cause the smug Negro middle class to turn from their white, respectable, ordinary books and papers to catch a glimmer of their own beauty.

Langston Hughes mentions the names because of the significance of the heritage. Thus the heritage here concerns the identity problem how negro artists lost their path and concludes this idea with the lines to turn from their white, respectable, ordinary books and papers showing that this path is not correct and finishing it with the true path with the lines to catch a glimmer of their own beauty.

The near intellectuals in this work are the black writers or artists who don't embrace their ethnicity: the speaker argues that they have to expose themselves to the artists mentioned to learn not to be ashamed of their roots and to express them in their art.