Connectivity and Community: Home to Harlem and a New Notion of Uplift

Essays in magazines, literature and art all worked to combat stereotypical racist
representation of the race. Racist stereotypes dominated in popular culture of the 1920s, and
to counter these racist stereotypes, white and black writers erred on the side of nobility, and
posited equally fictitious black archetypes (Gates 131). Writers, musicians, and artists of the
Harlem Renaissance presented representatives of Black America that sought to uplift the race,
and change public opinion, to cultivate a more positive sensibility toward Black Americans. For
some, the most representative colored man both because he represented black people most
eloquently and elegantly, and because he was the races great opportunity to re-present itself in
the court of racist public opinion (Gates 129). W.E.B. Du Bois, in his text, The Criteria of
Negro Art describes what he calls Beauty: The Cathedral at Cologne, a forest in stone, set in
light and changing shadow, echoing with sunlight and solemn songthe broken curves of the
Venus of Milo; a single phrase of music in the Southern SouthSuch is Beauty. Its variety is
infinity, its possibility is endless (DuBois 292). DuBois states that beauty is endless, but what
he recalls as beautiful is classic. He hearkens to the works of the Renaissance and the Romantics.
The work is polished, with elevated and poetic diction. It alludes to classic western literature and
represents how DuBois sought to lift the race out of stereotypes and subjugation: out of polished
work, exceptional Beauty, literature, and art. Claude McKay opposed DuBoiss vision; he
presented an everyman approach to combating subjugation and racism. His text, Home to
Harlem shows the disparity and opposition between the notions of the exceptional and the
everyman approaches to representation and inclusion. Jake and Ray show the differing
approaches to representation and uplift: Jake, the proletarian-class, Great Migration nomadic
primitive, and Ray, the educated-class, West Indian exile and revolutionary intellectual
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(Holcomb 721). Home to Harlem argues against DuBoiss notion of uplift and representation,
employing a proletariat, collective strategy through everyman representation.
Home to Harlem argues against Du Boiss notion of the exceptional representative, the
talented tenth in the language of the novel. The narration is simplistic, pragmatic, and
approachable: he woke up in the morning in a state of perfect peace. She brought him hot coffee
and cream and doughnuts. He yawned. He sighed. He was satisfied (McKay 15). The
approachable narration is inclusive and speaks to the proletariat in and around Harlem. He writes
the text in a way that it speaks to the working people of the time. The language is stripped of any
superfluous adjectives and is concise. McKay also includes vernacular and slang in the text.
Some dialogue is written phonetically: I aint got a cent to my name...but ahm happy as a
prince, all the same. Yes I is (McKay 15). This language, and the spelling of this language as an
artistic choice speaks to his audience. Members of this community can recognize this faction of
language and relate. This choice effectively creates an in-group/out-group situation. Those that
can speak this common language and appreciate its inclusion would likely have been members of
the black proletariat class during this time. McKay chooses the black proletariat class as his main
audience, and includes them in his novel, creating a sense of community. Choosing the
proletariat as the main audience shows his notion of uplift. For McKay, change will come from
within the working class community.
The novel exists within the world of the proletariat community; the novel opens on a
freighter. Jake is the working class protagonist, who was used to all sorts of rough jobs, but he
had never before worked in such a filthy dinghy (McKay 1). The first setting of this novel is in
a dirty boat, one where the stokers bunks were lousy, and fetid with the mingled smell of stale
food and water-closet (McKay 3). Opening in fetid conditions, Home to Harlem does not seek
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to be read as high-brow literature, or a tool for lifting the race, but rather an example of
proletariat life. The essence of Harlem, and the Harlem Renaissance was found in the cabarets
and jazz music. The cabarets were the scene of culture creation, and were a community of their
own. Jake travels to Harlem to join this community, seeking relationships and connection to this
vibrant subculture. He romantically recounts the deep-dyed color, the thickness, the closeness
of it.the contagious fever of Harlemburning now in [his] sweet blood (McKay 15). Jake is
joyous to be a part of this community. Community is so important to Jake that he has
romanticized the location of his community. Harlem is thick and contagious, a harbinger of
connectivity; the music all night long, ragtime and blues playing somewhere, singing
somewhere, dancing somewhere! (McKay 15). For McKay, connectivity and community exists
and continues in the cabarets and jazz clubs of Harlem, not in classic literature and political art:
it was not the literature of this period that realized a profound contribution to art; rather, it was
the black creators of the classic blues and jazz whose creative works, subsidized by the black
working class, defined a new era in the history of Western music (Gates 148). The working
class and community work together to form culture, and perpetuate a new representative of the
race. It is the music that creates community and culture, individuals working together: each
human body has its own peculiar rhythm, shallow or deep or profound. Transient rhythms that
touch and pass you, unrememberable, and rhythms unforgettable. Imperial rhythms whose vivid
splendor blinds your sight and destroys your taste for lesser ones (McKay 311). McKay
celebrates all forms of music and personality, from Ray, the imperially educated, to Jake the
transient, to the shallow or deep. He embraces all individuals as they come together into the
collective.
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As Jake focuses on connections and collectivity, Ray is his foil, representing imperialism,
and the exceptional representative. Ray is himself a colonized product of Jamaica (Cooper
98), classically educated and his native language is French. Ray questions the functions of art, an
endeavor for only the educated. His education is one of his failings though, he dreams of
making something with words (McKay 228) but believes that only the Russians of the late era
seemed to stand up like giants in the new. He longs to create, but does not see his training as
adequate to represent the world around him: he is an outsider because of his education, his
cohorts uneducated. He sees a disparity between what he would write about and those touted and
taught as greats: Gogol, Tolstoy, and the like. He does see slight possibility within his reality, he
sees that Harlem and the life around Jake is a fertile reality, a source of culture but questions
whether or not it is fertile enough, worth being a subject of writing. His imperialist education
leads him to neither disavow nor fully connect to Harlem life, and as such, he is an outsider, his
imperialist education a hindrance. He has learned to see the world within the confines of a white
imperialist construct, and in Harlem, he notes that he is a misfit with my little education and
constant dreaming...the more I learn the less I understand and love life (McKay 274). McKay
asserts that classical, imperialist, western education is not only not the path to happiness, but
leads to isolation and thoughts away from the collective. Ray states that modern education is
planned to make you a sharp, snouty, rooting hog...we ought to get something new, we Negroes
(McKay 243). Ray critiques imperialist education as confining Negroes to operating within the
white, hegemonic construct. He posits that this kind of education is a dead end; he is unhappy
and unable to use his education to improve himself. He cant answer this little question, Why
are we living? to which Billy Biasse answers Why, becaz Gawd wants us to, chappie (McKay
274). Using God as a way to answer an esoteric question comes easily to Billy, who is also
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uneducated, but for Ray, this is not a satisfactory answer. Had he been able to use God and
religion to answer this question, he would not have needed his vast education. Jake suggests that
they all go to Uncle Docs...and finish the night with a lil sweet jazzing. This is you last night,
chappie. Make the most of it, foh there aint no jazzing like Harlem jazzing over the other
side(McKay 275). Jake attempts to draw Ray into the collective, into the community the
jazzing is unique to Harlem and doesnt discriminate against education or socioeconomic
status. This attempt ultimately fails, as the next afternoon the freighter left with Ray signed on
as a mess boy Ray is the individualistic exception, and the consequence of that is loneliness. For
McKay, individualism leads to isolation, and Ray is not heard from again. His journey within the
novel is over, because of his exceptional qualities. This shows that McKays answer to the
question of representation for betterment is that of an everyman approach. It is Jake who gets
the happy ending, the man in love with collectivity, and not Ray who has a superior intellect.
In his text, Queer Black Proletarianism, Gary Edward Holcomb describes dissident
sexuality and politics as inextricable. He states that Home to Harlem displays McKays part in
socialist internationalism, his participation in radical politics, both Black Marxism as well as
pluralistic leftism (Holcomb 714), through the relationship of Ray and Jake. The emphasis on
community and the cabarets in Harlem as well as the relationship between Ray and Jake invites a
queer reading of the novel. The queer reading, for Holcomb is necessary: McKay must be
understood as a writer who not only struggled against class, labor, race, and colonial domination.
He must be understood, as well, as a subject who, laterally, with varying displays of directness
and obliqueness, exposed more acceptable forms of resistanceclass and race strugglesto a
sexual dissidence(Holcomb 718). McKay chose to combat subjugation through analyzing class
separations and distinctions, and adding an element of subversive sexuality in his novel. Linking
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global politics to sexuality is especially powerful as a tool in Home to Harlem because this novel
was one of the first to explore sexuality in such a casual manner. Sex, and multiple forms of
sexuality are prevalent in this novel--Jakes first desire when he gets to Harlem is brown girls
roughed and painted like dark pansies. Brown flesh draped in soft colorful clothes. Brown lips
full and pouted for sweet kissing. Brown breasts throbbing with love (McKay 8). Jake is full of
desire for the women and the sexual environment of Harlem. Holcomb articulates that for
McKay, without forcing class and race struggle to acknowledge the importance of a sexual
dissidence in a global liberation politics, no meaningful effort against colonialism, racism, and
capitalism would be worthwhile (Holcomb 718). This article claims that the homosexual
relationship between Ray and Jake was written as a political statement, a way in which McKay
could question class separation and tensions through a subversive masculinity cultivated through
Ray and Jakes sexual dissidence. He posits that the goal of Home to Harlem is to
acknowledge variants in sexuality; that sexuality is a major factor in global politics.
Ray is the character who has the most complicated sexuality. Billy Biasse eats his own
kind (McKay 92), but Ray has complicated feelings. He enjoys the life without responsibilities
he and Jake have been living, but doesnt feel quite comfortable. He does not participate at
Madame Lauras party, and in fact, suddenly felt a violent dislike for the atmosphere(McKay
192). He is uncomfortable where Jake is comfortable, and feels alone and a little sorry for
himself. Now that he was there, he would like to be touched by the spirit of that atmosphere, and,
like Jake, fall naturally into its rhythm (McKay 194). His longing for Jake could be read as
desire and frustration at the lack of reciprocation. In his drug induced fantasy, where all the
world was a blue paradise. Everything was in gorgeous blue of heaven...taboos and terrors and
penalties were transformed into new pagan delights, orgies of Orient-blue carnival (McKay
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158), he displays his suppressed desire. Caught between adhering to heteronormative societal
standards, and his desire for red fruits, cherubs, and seraphs and fetishes and phalli and all the
most-high gods (McKay 158), is clear. McKay exposed his audience to an educated man who
questioned his education and was uncomfortable in his sexuality. This tension adds a layer to the
discourse; Ray, who is educated and is uncomfortable in his sexuality leaves for an
individualistic life, alone, to work on a freighter. Rays departure from the novel is the same as
Jakes entrance into it. This may imply that his work with the proletariat class could give him a
new start, a rebirth. Ray might follow in his footsteps, go on his journey at first, alone, and then,
through work welcome his sexuality, accept himself, and come home to Harlem.
The entirety of Home to Harlem is written in a way that allows McKay to appeal to a
wide audience. His work follows a journey through Harlem and presents Harlem as the cultural
center of the Harlem renaissance, and culture isnt always polished. Relationships rarely end
neatly, fights occur in cabarets, and jazz clubs can be less than pristinely kept. These places and
emotions are real, and seeing them in a novel brings the proletariat together, as a stronger
community. McKay desires a representation of what is real, simple, raw emotions and real.
They may frighten and repel refined souls, because they are too intensely real, just as a simple
savage stands dismayed before nice emotions that he instantly perceives are false (McKay 338).
Unlike Du Boiss desire for classic Western art and literature to be the basis for Negro Art, the
basis for McKays Negro art is truth. Unpolished, connected and available. This passage is
McKays refashioning of Du Boiss Criteria of Negro Art. The colloquial language, vernacular
inclusion, taboo subjects and dissident sexuality are all ways in which McKay appeals to
everyone. His goal is not to present Du Boiss talented tenth, but the true, everyman
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community of Harlem. For McKay, racism can be combated by appealing to a wide audience
across color lines to socioeconomic status, and sexuality.

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Works Cited
Cooper, Carolyn. Race and the Cultural Politics of Self-Representation: A View from the
University of The West Indies. Research in African Literatures. 27. 4 (1996): 97-105.
Print.
Du Bois, W.E.B. Criteria of Negro Art. Crisis. 32 (1926): 290-297. Print.
Gates, Henry Louis. The Trope of a New Negro and the Reconstruction of the Image of the
Black. Representations. 24 (1988):129-155. Print.
Holcomb, Gary Edward. Diaspora Cruises: Queer Black Proletarianism in Claude McKays A
Long Way From Home. Modernism/Modernity. 49. 4 (2003): 714-745. Print.
McKay, Claude: Home to Harlem. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987. Print.