Jean Toomer – Chief Architect of the Harlem Renaisance?
- Jean Toomer
In 1923, Toomer published the novel
Cane, an important work of High Modernism. It is considered by scholars to be his best work. A series of poems and short stories about the black experience in America, Cane was hailed by critics and is seen as an important work of both the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation. (This is information gleened from Wikipedia – if you can add to this information, please feel free to reply to this post)
When one reads of Jean Toomer’s mixed heritage and his strong passions with regard to not being defined by race – his work becomes less difficult to translate. His work is transcendent of “Negro Literature” he is attempting to write himself free of the clown suit that many Harlem Renaissance writers refused to don. The Clown Suit that constricted black men and women to a sorrowful genre of just documenting suffering. Many of our fore mother and fathers rejected this concept and this is the hallmark of that movement. Blacks wrote of Blacks as whole beings. Loving, grieving, lieing, honest, cold – whole beings. Jean Toomer employs the technique of hiding himself behind words and then reappearing – you catch a glimpse of him – it incites a strange intimacy to read him writing his mental shackles off – melting metal with words. It is a techigue I am begininng to adopt.
The writing was about life – about the mixed experiences of black life. We are not born from one WATERMELON SEED – I have posted one of his essays and will post a short story and some poetry on a new page.
REFLECTIONS ON THE RACE RIOTS
by Jean Toomer
The New York Call, 2 August 1919
The central fact emerging from the recent series of race riots is not so much that the Negro has developed an essentially new psychology, characterized by a fighting attitude. The Negro has always been conspicuous for his aggressiveness when arrayed against a foreign enemy. What is significant is that the Negro, for the first time in American history, has directed his “fight” against the iniquities of the white man in the United States. It is, of course, obvious that this fighting spirit received a decided stimulus in the form of the world war. It is likewise clear that the manifest disinclination of civil authorities to protect Negro life went far to crystalize a long smouldering resentment. Yet the outstanding feature remains, not that the Negro will fight, but that he will fight against the American white.
As long as the Negro was here passive the true solution of the race problem could wait. The South burned and lynched, and the North aided by its silence. But now, with the Negro openly resolved and prepared to resist attacks upon his person and privileges, the condition assumes a graver aspect. Immediate steps toward co-operative relations are imperative. It now confronts the nation, so voluble in acclamation of the democratic ideal, so reticent in applying what it professes, to either extend to the Negro (and other workers) the essentials of a democratic commonwealth or else exist from day to day never knowing when a clash may occur, in the light of which the Washington riot will diminish and pale. Clearly, then, this is no time for appeal. This is no time for academic discussion and presidential meditation. This is essentially a time for action.
Amongst those who would offer a fitting solution there is a motley group so deep in the pit of prejudice, and with vision so circumscribed by the walls of their confinement, that they would eliminate racial differences by increasing the very acts which immediately caused them. They would have the fist of the white man educate the brain of the black. And where common, everyday American brutishness proved to no avail, lynching-bees and burning-fests would be substituted. Thus would they hold up to the eyes of the world the salutary effects of depravity. As those in this class are their own and only counsellors, none may advise them, nor can they counsel others wisely.
Then there is a second group which limits its suggestions to the worn-out method of “constitutional rights for the Negro,” who seem to believe that therein lies the sole solvent of racial antagonisms. Quite naturally, believing as they do in the adequacy of our governmental machinery, and certain as they are of the essential goodness of all Americans, they deplore the Negro’s fighting psychology, contending with irrefrangible logic that “two wrongs never make a right.”
As to the extension of constitutional rights-it should be apparent that under this very constitution the country has come to this crisis. To fit a worn-out coat on the Negro will not alter the essential character of things. Race riots are prevalent in Chicago, where Negroes enjoy political privilege. In effect, the constitution gives no more. The solution, then, must lie deeper than mere suffrage.
As to deploring the new spirit and attitude of the Negro there is much to be said. Not a few who condemn the Negro’s “fight” would be themselves the first to fight under like circumstances. Their quarrel is not with fight, per se (a war with Mexico would meet with their hearty approval), but with the Negro (or any other worker), who displays an active unwillingness to submit to injustices. Such a Negro is difficult to exploit.
But over against those whose rhetoric covers their intention are individuals who, in all sincerity, believe physical resistance or aggression, as a means to an end, a discredited institution. And, on the whole, they are in the right. But this one conditioning factor should be noted. In this instance the choice of means-the prerogative-is not with the Negro. If a man would shoot you, and there be no one to prevent him, you must shoot first. Life permits of nothing less. In substance, just this condition prevailed in Washington. Not only did the civil authorities offer little or no protection, but in all too numerous cases were themselves the assailants. Those, then, who would aid in the present crisis would do well to focus attention and action upon those fundamental and determining causes which have irresistibly drawn the Negro into his present position. To do this brings one adjacent to the thought and action of the labor movement.
In the literature of the Socialist movement in this country there is to be found a rational explanation of the causes of race hatred, and, in the light of these, a definite solution, striking at the very root of the evil, is proposed. It is generally established that the causes of race prejudice may primarily be found in the economic structure that compels one worker to compete against another, and that furthermore renders it advantageous for the exploiting classes to inculcate, foster, and aggravate that competition. If this be true, then it follows that the nucleus of race co-operation lies in the substitution of a socialized community for a competitive one. To me, it appears that nothing less than just such an economic readjustment will ever bring concord to the two races; for, as long as there are governing classes and as long as these classes feel it to their gain to keep the masses in constant conflict, just so long will a controlled press and educational system incite and promote race hatred. Where there is advantage to be secured by racial antagonisms, heaven and hell will be invoked to that purpose. Demagogues may storm and saints may plead, but America will remain a grotesque stormcenter, tom by passion and hatred, until our democratic pretensions are replaced by a socialized reality.
