The piece “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” begins with the author speaking of her hometown and who she was there, surrounded by people just like her (being a black community), what I found most interesting is the phrase ” I was not Zora of Orange County any more, I was now a little colored girl” to a black person in America that says a lot. She later demonstrates that her skin color was something that defined her to the outside world, nevertheless she did not allow that to tare her down “I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife”, phrase after phrase the author establishes her self as an individual who stood to the world that made all efforts to bring her down.

What I found most powerful and admirable in this work is the the authors passion to establish herself “At certain times I have no race, I am me”. It’s because black people have a lot of their own culture that they should embrace it, their effort to put themselves at the center of stage as they deserve, rather then be taken advantage of and having their culture be appropriated. What drives this possibility of stage presence is disconnecting oneself from race, and simply state that you are who you are due to your ambition and your drive to empower yourself and others like you, and simultaneously teach those who “deny themselves the pleasure of my company” how wrong they are and what they are mission out on. This was the message I got from reading this piece by Zora Neale, but then I read another work by Franz Fanon “The fact of Blackness”. A black protagonist in the world that beats him down for who he is due the color of his skin. The author enlightened me to an interesting concept, -the notion of third person “I was responsible at the same time for my body, for my race, for my ancestors” (pg 259), this is interesting because through history we have thought of black individuals as one thing that consists of their race, their behavior and their history, but all of that was composed by the white man “Negro is an animal, Negro is bad, the Negro is mean…”. Only till around 1980’s no one asked black people who they truly are, we see them as a false image created centuries ago. Further for a black person its difficult to hide away, as the author compares visibility among people between Jews and blacks “the Jew can be unknown in his Jewishness” (pg 260), while a black person tends to stand out weather he be in the majority or minority of the group, because in the eyes of society a black person’s image has already been “fixed” (pg 261).

The two works both written by black writers seem so different in message but both have powerful messages that cant be missed, illustrating how powerful black people can be despite the already “fixed” image the world has of them, how they fight and establish themselves in societies because yes they do belong.

Sandra Batres

Blog #3

The Invisible Founder

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man has many reoccurring elements, in particular an emphasis on a societal blindness which in many ways mirrors a religious blindness. The narrator addresses readers in retrospect on how he came to witness this blindness in his younger and more malleable years. An instrument used to ensure this blindness on the young black men and women was the Founder of their college. His presence and formidable force felt throughout the school reinforced authority and discipline. The weight of his promise and dream loomed over the minds of students and all of those who reaped the rewards of such a dream. Throughout the novel readers may slowly come to recognize the Founder as a Christ like figure, a symbol and an invisible man himself—a man who is not really seen but who symbolizes and commands a conformity that weighs heavily on the narrator.

The biggest giveaway to the Founder’s religious cloak is the story of his life and death as told by Reverend Barbee. The story of the Founder’s two resurrections gives him a divine touch—among the rest he is exceptional. The young black students, as well as all of those who look up to him, are asked to faithfully believe in his dream, in his promise. A fragment of his dream that became a realization is the very institution they are privileged to receive an education. The institution is seen as part of the Founder’s prophecy becoming real. A “prophecy” that became real because he is regarded as such, a prophet, “And into this land came a humble prophet, lowly like the humble carpenter of Nazareth, a slave and a son of slaves, knowing only his mother” (118). He traveled around, spreading his message to bring his people together, leading them, as Barbee’s allusion to Moses states, “safe and unharmed across the bottom of the blood-red sea” and out of ignorance, shouting his message when he needed to and whispering it when it was wisest (120). His death is marked by a falling star, and the birth of Jesus is marked by the star of Bethlehem. Barbee proclaims in his speech, “It was as though the very constellations knew our impending sorrow […] For against that great — wide — sweep of sable there came the burst of a single jewel-like star, and I saw it shimmer, and break, and streak down the cheek of that coal-black sky like a reluctant and solitary tear…” (128). Listeners are moved by the Founder’s story and the dramatic manner by which Reverend Barbee retells the tale. It is this religious interpretation of the Founder’s story that holds listeners captive. They are not listening to the story of a simple man with a vision for their race but rather the story of a prophet delivering a message from God about the direction of their race. The story however makes the narrator feel sad, then annoyed and finally guilty of some sort of treachery by his part—as if the Founder’s story and promise are beginning to mean something different and he feels wrong and ashamed about it.

The narrator is justified in feeling differently about the Founder because he has become a symbol representing different things to different people. The Founder represents for the white millionaire trustees “blacks knowing their place” not reaching too high, certainly not at a level above them. With the Founder’s story and the underlying emphasis on his humility, the white trustees can remain good moral Christian men by allowing them to progress in a sense, while at the same time protecting their race and their supremacy over blacks. This is evident when Mr. Norton tells the narrator, “Your people did not know in what direction to turn and, I must confess, many of mine didn’t know in what direction they should turn either. But your great Founder did. He was my friend and I believed in his vision. So much so, that sometimes I don’t know whether it was his vision or mine…” (39). Mr. Norton states this as if the direction of equality to its fullest and truest extent were never an option, as if it were so inconceivable that it was outside of his field of vision. To black students and their parents however, the Founder’s message is one they had to accept for the sake of any progress. It’s easy to conform to this idea if it is the closest thing to freedom of opportunity the other side is willing to accept. White people knew that they had to give something and Black people needed something to hope for, something that would give them a sense of humanity. The blindness of White people is not seeing Black people as humans equal to them and the blindness of Black people is not believing in a better dream or seeing a better way, their perception is limited within the parameters of a white-run-world. So their blindness is not necessarily a blindness to discrimination and unfairness. When the narrator first introduces readers to the Founder, he actually describes his statue,

I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding (36).

The Founder’s symbolic status serves to blind people from the reality of the situation, from the reality of the dream. While they get to go to school, it is an all-Black school and while they work on their education, their opportunities outside of the college will be limited and their intellect and humanity always questioned.

It’s interesting how the Founder’s message could turn the man into such a double symbol. The Founder without a name, is an invisible man himself—his story, told by none other than a reverend named Homer A. Barbee, presenting him as a divine and pious myth rather than the story of a man in need of a compromise for his people. He is made out to be a prophet and his message a divine one, to reinforce order among the people. To continue fighting despite such a revelation is to revolt against God himself. Perhaps this is why the narrator feels a sense of treason and guilt for his doubts on the Founder’s dream and vision. And perhaps this is why Bledsoe presents himself as a humble president in public and reveals his true self in private. Bledsoe knows fiction from reality, knows the power of the Founder’s message/dream/promise on not only Black people but also White people. The message reassures white people that no further fighting will continue and allows black young men and women to believe that they have a shot at progress. Bledsoe knows that the symbol his friend has become has rewarded him personally, so despite not believing in the message he parallels a corrupt priest or disciple—a servant to his prophet in public whilst reaping the rewards of those he knows are blindly following a dream. This leads to the idea that the Founder, whose name we do not know, just like the narrator, is an invisible man—open to interpretation, corruption and mythology. The Founder is loved because he is a means to an end—a symbol of some progress, a symbol of authority and knowing “ones’ place”. He is a man that dared to stand up but not all the way up, he dared to ask for opportunity but stopped short of true equality and strived for the highest elevation no black man in America had ever dreamed, yet died before he reached the mountain summit.

Novel by Ralph Ellison “Invisible Man” first chapters comes from a black narrator who describes himself as the “invisible man”, he does so to open the door for a dialogue from a perspective of a person who has been made invisible by society he lives in. This is an example of double consciousness “looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” according to the reading of Du Bois “The Souls of Black Folk”. And because the narrator views himself through the eyes of others, he in a way looses his own true identity, he at times acts aggressive “I am not so overtly violent. I remember that I am invisible and walk softly”. Du Bois  mentioned the idea of “double consciousness”, which is demonstrated in the novel, the narrator understands the benefits of being “invisible” to others;  “when it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually; that he, as far as he knew, was in the midst of a walking nightmare!”, the narrator got seen because he committed an action (mugged) white man was programmed and that man was only seeing him because it’s all he knows about seeing in a black man “violence”, other than that the narrator was invisible to him in all aspects of his existence “When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything and anything except me”. Nevertheless the narrator mentions that due to his invisibility he gets to live rent free (he seems to have an optimistic sense for life despite his undeserved struggles). The stat of the novel Invisible Man starts with an evident signs of double consciousness, and how the protagonist deals with it, I would assume as the novel progresses the protagonist finds himself and his place in this world despite how cruel it is to him due to his ethnicity.

 The prologue of the Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is unlike one I have ever read before. Within these few short pages the author has been able to eloquently give us an inside look on the complexities of this character in a truly remarkable way. He begins this introduction by letting us know that he is invisible, not in a physical sense but in a way where the whites can never truly see him. His “ghostliness” is an presence of absence to those who can not see him.There is a bit of a paradox within this, as though he describes himself in this manner he also states that everyone else around him is blind. To call others blind means that they are physically unable to see him, as though he makes it appear that he may find comfort in his ability to remain unseen, just because they are unable to view him, makes me think at the same time he yearns for them to see him in a light outside the color of his skin, yet labels them as blind as an excuse of being able to do so. He makes a case that he is so keen on remaining on staying invisible, yet his actions speak differently. He gets by, by residing in a shut off basement in an apartment building that only houses white tenants, this may be his way to desire to be one of the whites by choosing to live in a building where only they are able to live. Though his place to live is shut off by the rest of the building he lights up the his place to live with over a thousand light bulbs. This is an extremely evident detail as for a man who spends his days wanting to be invisible and is told by others that the dark complexion of his skin define him, chooses to live in a place consumed of light. This is where his bout of existentialism comes in as he is searching for his own individuality and believes he is able to find it throughout his own endeavors despite outside factors telling him otherwise. His expedition continues while he blasts Louis Armstrong song “Black and Blue”, and wishes to be able to own more francophones to play this song even louder. The paradox in this continues with him playing this song at the loudest volumes with lyrics containing “my only sin is my skin”, where you are able to understand his struggles with his identity and how his skin color is an obstacle is what prevents him from being seen, yet wanting to play this loud enough to even hear the vibrations shows that he wants to break through from the barrier that his skin grants and does in fact want to be seen and heard. This leads to a state of confusion and feeling lost and he doesn’t know what to feel he is stuck between two worlds, one being consumed with light and music, and one where he must succumb to his darkness and the invisibility it entails.

Race is racism and the sheer fact that race exists illustrates that there are differences among individuals due to the discriminatory nature of race. Whiteness is almost too powerful for anyone to handle, in the sense that if someone is recognized as white there is an immediate shift of power and privilege. I watched a video on Twitter that showed a room full of white people and the speaker asked “if you, as a white person, would like to be treated the way black people are in this society, stand” and no one stood up because they all know blacks are treated unfairly. This brings up Rankine’s “On Whiteness and the racial imaginary” piece for the reason that white writers do not know or have never experienced racism and should think over why they want to write about different races.

Rankine’s argument that white writers have is that they are allowed to write as a different race because of the imagination and that writing is an art form that transcends all races. “The imagination is a free space, and I have the right to imagine from the point of view of anyone I want—it is against the nature of art itself to place limits on who or what I can imagine.” On the contrary, white writers can not transcend race because of the notion of racial imaginary. Racial imaginary is the idea that no one is free of any biases even when in regards to the imagination because we all have images and ideas instilled in us by parents, books, movies, or even other people. The idea of the other made me think about Fanon’s piece “ The fact of blackness” when he describes of being constantly watched in society and only being seen as a skin color and nothing else.  “..To experience his being through others.” Others play an important role in Fanon’s work and it also strengthens this idea of the racial imaginary by highlighting the experiences that others have. Those experiences and memories make a lasting effect on people, so for white writers to say that their imagination has no biases is all wrong. Those experiences shape who they become and how they perceive certain things especially race. Rankine’s piece warns the reader of the dangers of whiteness and white writers ability of writing about other races with no regard to how it affects the people of that race or how the piece will be perceived. “Here we are again: we’ve made this thing and we’ve sent it out into the world for recognition—and because what we’ve made is in essence a field of human experience created for other humans, the field and its maker and its readers are thus subject all over again to race and its infiltrations. In that moment arise all sorts of possible hearings and mis-hearings, all kinds of address and redress.” This is the danger of white writers publishing works from a different perspective that is unfamiliar from their own. There could be misinformation about blacks in a certain book and it can lead to even more prejudices towards black and create more conflict. As a society we should look at the now and be more conscious of our decisions and writers should also think more in depth about how their work can affect everyone.