Still Invisible?. Elvin J. Dowling

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СКАЧАТЬ indeed, the world's response, was the beginning of a running dialogue on what it means to be a black male in America. "Invisible Man," Prescott wrote, "is undoubtedly melodramatic; but each melodramatic incident represents some aspect of the Negro's plight in America, or of his response to it."

      But just as important as it is to recognize the literary genius Ellison exhibits in his work, we must also be mindful of the struggle the book's narrator and protagonist continued to encounter in every aspect of his life, all of which led to his feelings of hopeless invisibility. Today, Black males in America continue to face some of the same challenges that the "Invisible Man" faced in his own life, as a college educated man who continually finds himself in situations that reinforce his own societal limitations. They, too, feel trapped in a skin that, at once, renders them as someone to be watched warily, simultaneously forgotten and increasingly inconsequential.

      In the nearly seven decades that have passed since the publishing of Ellison's work, "Invisible Man" has shined a light on the effects of systemic racism in America. For example, a recurring theme of the book centers around the narrator's need to fit into his environment and, in doing so, becomes an inauthentic version of himself. Today, this same narrative continues to play out in the lives of African American men everywhere, as they live sicker and die quicker than any other group in America, all while struggling to be seen in a nation that pretends that they aren't there. In his article, "American Nightmare: Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" At 60," journalist Nathaniel Rich of the Daily Beast reminds us that this iconic novel not only broke barriers in literature, it also went a long way towards helping to expose the harsh realities of racial discrimination in the country. In his insightful analysis of the book's impact since its initial publication, Rich observed: "In Invisible Man we experience American history as a nightmare. Sixty years after the novel’s publication we still haven’t woken up." On this singular point, history and time, have agreed. Perhaps the most insightful synopsis of "Invisible Man" comes from Ralph Ellison himself, who described the nameless protagonist at the heart of this novel, as "a depiction of a certain type of Negro humanity that operates in the vacuum created by white America in its failure to see Negroes as human.” ("American Nightmare"). And even in the age of a "post-racial America," black males are still asking the fundamental question: "will they ever see us?"

      In their Op-Ed piece entitled, "Forcing Black Men Out of Society," the New York Times Editorial Board, led by Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal, spoke with one clarion voice about the need to address the systemic exclusion of black men in many aspects of American society. "An analysis—"1.5 Million Missing Black Men”— showed that more than one in every six black men in the 24-to-54 age group has disappeared from civic life, mainly because they died young or are locked away in prison," the times noted (Rosenthal). “While the 1.5 million number is startling, it actually understates the severity of the crisis that has befallen African-American men since the collapse of the manufacturing and industrial centers, which was quickly followed by the “war on drugs” and mass imprisonment, which drove up the national prison population more than sevenfold beginning in the 1970s,” the editorial board continued, noting the dismal statistics that are oftentimes attendant with being Black in America (Rosenthal). Unless and until we reverse these declines and bring our missing men back into the fabric of our nation as productive members of society, nothing will ever change.

      The aforementioned New York Times report went on to note that systemic racism, poverty, crime and lack of opportunity have all colluded together to effectively stymie the ability of black males in America to beat the odds stacked against them. “In addition to the “missing,” millions more are shut out of society, or are functionally missing, because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers, racial discrimination or sanctions that prevent millions who have criminal convictions from getting all kinds of jobs. At the same time, the surge in imprisonment has further stigmatized blackness itself, so that Black men and boys who have never been near a jail now have to fight the presumption of criminality in many aspects of day-to-day life..." (Rosenthal). Be that as it may, in spite of the fact that the majority of Americans know and fully understand the impacts that systematic exclusion can have on any group of people, many still refuse to even address these intractable issues, preferring instead to pretend they don't exist, and simply hope that they will go away. Then, in 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States and everything changed.

      Here We Go Again?

      In quoting novelist Jesmyn Ward, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction, Conrad Pritscher, in his book "Skin Color: The Shame of Silence" underscored the necessity of rooting out racism at its core, if America is to ever deal with its "original sin" once and for all and truly become a more perfect union. "There is power in naming racism for what it is, in shining a bright light on it, brighter than any torch or flashlight. A thing as simple as naming it allows us to root it out of the darkness and hushed conversation where it likes to breed like roaches. It makes us acknowledge it. Confront it." (Pritscher 107). But before racism can be effectively confronted, it must be universally recognized for what it is.

      In his 1964 concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio, reversing the conviction of Nico Jacobellis, the manager of an Ohio movie theater, for his repeated screening of the movie "The Lovers" which the state had classified as obscene, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart laid plain the reality of a "thing that speaks for itself," in writing: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it..." (Jacobellis). For hundreds of years, the United States of America has demonstrated to her citizens of color that it operates on a system of racism and discrimination designed to keep minorities in a permanent state of disadvantage. As such, if there is one thing most Black people know when they see, like Justice Stewart was with obscenity, its racism; an odious disease of the spirit they can smell a mile away.

      In his article, "Trump Ain't New: America Has a Long History of Racist Presidents," author David Love of The Grio.com delineated the multiplicity of examples of American presidents that have exhibited racist behavior before, during or after holding office. George Washington, who owned more than 300 enslaved Africans at his death, approved of whipping them into submission and working them into old-age. Thomas Jefferson, our third president and author of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States regularly raped his subjects and then enslaved the children he forced them to carry to term. So, what Black Americans are experiencing now, in the current renaissance of white nationalism, is certainly nothing new. In fact, the history of America has demonstrated time and again that it is not unusual for the United States to elect political leaders to the highest offices in the land that are committed to upholding the vestiges of white supremacy and social privilege. "Andrew Jackson–Trump’s hero– was one of the worst American presidents, and also one of its most racist. He owned hundreds of slaves, and censored anti-slavery mailings from Northern abolitionists while president. Nicknamed “Indian killer,” he committed genocide against of Native Americans, including women and children. His Indian Removal Act removed 46,000 native people from their land, making 25 million acres available to white settlers and slaveowners, while 4,000 Cherokee people died during the “Trail of Tears” forced relocation to the West." (Love). As the conscience of the country, Black Americans are not shocked by the antics of the current occupant of the White House who wants to keep it just that way--a WHITE House. For them, its par for the course and business as usual.

      Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." For far too long, too many "good people" have remained silent while an overt assault on the human rights and basic dignities of all people in America are clearly being stripped away. And yet many say nothing. Absolutely nothing. Instead some choose moral equivocation when faced with a choice of "us vs. them," which pits otherwise peaceful neighbors against one another and is demonstrative of an unhealthy country. According to Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Anna Brown and Kiana Cox of the Pew Research Center, СКАЧАТЬ