I am looking at the novel Home to Harlem by Claude McKay. McKay was a primitivist, meaning that he thought blacks were "closer to nature" and had access to emotions and passions whites lost the capacity to engage in fully in the process of modernization. One of the main characters in the novel is a Haitian man who comments on the occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). McKay was anti-imperialist and yet he was a primitivist. Primitivism had many functions and types and many imperialists too regarded blacks and Haitians as primitive. I want to explore how one can be a primitivist and anti-imperialist. My secondary source is a jstor article on the different types of primitivism, with a focus on Claude McKay's Home to Harlem.