Contrary to some later narratives, Jean Toomer was not attempting to “pass” as white. He would adhere to his own self-understanding while allowing others to make of him what they would. He considered himself the first conscious member of a “new race” coming into existence in the United States, and Cane itself attests pervasively to this idea, in that it presents a cycle of history coming to a close, awaiting the birth of a new one. Cane, he famously insisted, was a “swan song.”
