Rankine uses the inclusion of images to further illustrate the text. Before even opening the book, we are greeted with the image of a dark hood, cut from a regular every day hooded sweatshirt. This image has become a relevant symbol of the inequalities and atrocities against black people, where they have been described as dangerous simply for having a hoodie on. Like in the case of Trayvon Martin, who was gunned down 2 years prior to publication, the hood on the book cover is Rankine’s way of labeling the novel “dangerous” for the white population, as it brings to light the discrimination to the black community typically disguised as microagressions. In the first chapter, we are shown the image of a suburban street. The focus of the photograph is the name of the road, Jim Crowe. The relevance of Jim Crowe and black history is of severe importance, as it legalized racial segregation.We see this image when Rankine is describing a situation with a friend who continuously and “accidentally “called the narrator by the name of her black servant. The image and the anecdote, act harmoniously in portraying the ugliness of white privilege. The author includes it to highlight, yet again, microagressions that are blatantly racist.

Rankine’s images are not always photographs, however. She also includes a small excerpt of Zora Neale Hurston’s “How it Feels to be Colored Me”.  The first page of the image repeats the line “I do not always feel colored”, while the second page patterns the words “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background”. The words are pictured in big, bold letters that bleed into the ends of the pages. These lines, by themselves are extremely powerful. However, by depicting them in this manner, Rankine is drawing exceptional attention to them, projecting a sense of urgency in hopes that its reader can understand its importance. The lines chosen for this illustration also coincide with the ideas Rankine discusses throughout the book and connects to situations described, like Serena Williams being thrown against a white background in tennis. Because the words become harder to understand throughout the pages, it can also represent the misunderstandings of them. How no matter how many times it is said or proved, the understanding is never fully grasped. Either interpretation lends itself to the work as a whole.

The text can be read as captions for these powerful images because they employ an idea and Rankine elaborates on that idea with real life occurrences. This illustrations can be interpreted as a still, or a point in time, and the text surrounding it, serving as its caption, describes its relevance. I think there is an emphasis placed on the visual aspects of the book, although labeled a lyric, due to the repetition of its claims. Lyrics to any song are typically repetitious, especially in its chorus. This allows artists to emphasize the key points of the song. The same applies here. The images work with the text to emphasize the point thank Rankine aims to make. The images provide that extra attention that drives the concept of racism home. 

I thought to include this image of a black woman, Vanessa Willoughby, reading Citizen: An American Lyric during a Trump rally in 2015. This image caused a stir. It is powerful and I believe Rankine, if she has seen this, loves it and would include it in her future work, as it works to make a statement.

Soon after, we go back to learn about Pauline’s own childhood and her experiences. Growing up in Kentucky, the only inclination that she was different or unattractive stemmed from her bad foot. She disappeared into fairytale-like daydreams of someone coming into her life and loving her as she is. She longed to find some distant kind of peace in a person that would see beauty where her insecurity lied. When Cholly came along and embraced her foot, she found power in his worship and embraced it, too.

After meeting and marrying Cholly, she moves North to Ohio. There she becomes familiar with the societal ideals of beauty and her realization of her ugliness began to stem from more than just her bad foot. In her hometown, she was surrounded by people like herself, who spoke like her and had the same customs. The white people that did reside there were scarce, and rarely showed their faces. Now, however, Pauline had become hyper-aware of the countless white people that surrounded her in her new home, as well as the black people who alienated her for the same characteristics that brought her Kentucky neighbors together. This isolation began her increasing dislike for herself. As time progressed, Pauline sought pleasure in spending time with Cholly when he arrived from work, and eventually from getting her own job. Here, she was able to get a glimpse of how “the other side” lived. However, the idealization of beauty and privilege was heavily contrasted from intelligence, as Morrison makes sure to show that white does not always mean better.

A prominent moment of the mirror of beauty being shattered for Pauline, was the loss of her first tooth. She had become absorbed into trying to look her best, causing fights with Cholly in order to shop for new clothes and makeup. In the continuous rollercoaster of trauma she is built up by keeping up with these fads, but torn down again at the understanding that her makeup recreations were terrible in comparison to the other women in her town. In the midst of her attempted transformation, Pauline became exposed to the big screen and beauty as it was defined by the media. On one occasion,  she did her hair up like her favorite white actress only to have her tooth shatter at the bite of a candy bar. Pauline was seemingly putting on a costume with her hair, aiming to mimic the beauty she continuously saw praised. This literal shattering of her tooth metaphorically represents the fragility of the mirror reflecting a made up reality.

Jean Harlow on the cover of a magazine. Pauline did her hair up like this to go see her film at the theater. Harlow’s blonde hair, blue eyes, and cherry red lips encompass the ideal beauty in the 1940’s.

Even in present day, a Google search of “beauty in the 1940’s” turns up an excessively predominant white result.

This moment caused a turn in Pauline, as she stated “I don’t believe I ever did get over that. There I was, five months pregnant, trying to look like Jean Harlow, and a front tooth gone. Everything went then. Look like I just didn’t care no more after that. I let my hair go back, plaited it up, and settled down to just being ugly.” Soon after, when she gives birth to Pecola, the same feelings of her own ugliness in not looking like Jean Harlow is projected onto the child who she knew from birth “was ugly”. This projection is prominent in Pecola’s journey throughout the novel, as we see in the first moment that we are introduced to her mother.

In Chapter 18 of The Invisible Man, the title character is gifted a significant item by another member of the brotherhood, Brother Tarp. The gift is that of a piece of the chain that imprisoned the elderly brotherhood member for almost two decades, for simply saying “No” to a white man. There are several reasons for the significance of the chain-link, including the most obvious which represents the racial inequalities that were experienced by black men during the time of the novel. However, there are subtle uses and mentions of the chain link throughout the chapter and briefly in chapter 19 that give away to deeper interpretations of the item in relation to the story as a whole.

When gifting the Invisible Man with the chain-link, Brother Tarp recalls his experience in the south, the origin place of the narrator. Brother Tarp makes a revelation that stunned both the narrator and myself as the reader. He claims that he walks with a limp due to his dragging of the chain several years ago. According to the elderly man, doctors do not find anything wrong with his leg, so he is sure that his imprisonment is the reason for it. I found this to be a significant moment because he tells the narrator that it happened for exactly 19 years, six months, and two days. In this exchange, two things were revealed. One being that tarp is still paying for the “mistake” he made in negating something to a white man. He put up boundaries, but as a black man was punished for said actions and although he was able to free himself from the prison, there are still remnants of it that have become a part of his life even in the present. His limp serving as almost a simulation of a shackle he now only carries metaphorically. It is also necessary to observe that he was imprisoned for almost two decades, not for murder, but for simply not being a complacent black man in a society that not only expected him, but would have forced him to be.

In questioning Brother Tarp about his motives for giving the narrator his chain link, Tarp reveals that he sees the narrator as a token and to “remind you what we are fighting against”. The elderly brother goes on to discuss how a simple yes or no holds more significance than expected. After the recollection of injustice and escape towards freedom, it seems as though the narrator does not fully grasp the distinct implications of the chain, as he refers to it as a “lucky piece of chain”. He even goes further in comparing it to the pocket watch heirloom he would have received had he stayed in the South. When the conversation comes to an end, the chain-link that was balanced upon the narrator’s knuckles falls onto the cryptic note he received in the mail. I interpreted the subtle decision by the author as an accentuation of the bigger picture. By having the chain fall on top of the cryptic note that urged IM to “go slow”, the author suddenly highlights the chains that have been put on black men by, not only society, but by other members of the black community. In a way the Invisible Man was not allowed his freedom even in the Brotherhood.

Another subtle instance in which the author uses the chain link to insinuate something larger, is soon after while the narrator is working at the Brotherhood. Of all the ways that could be used to describe the chain, the author uses “oily and skin like”, using it as a reminder to the main character of what he is working to fight against. I found those specific adjectives interesting. At the moment in time in which they were used, I interpreted it to represent the narrators awareness of what he was doing and why. He was thinking about the people in the communities that he serves, so when he touched the chain it was personified and, in a way, showed his brief understanding of it in contrast to his disposition beforehand with Brother Tarp. Moments later, however, the suspicious note covers the chain. Moving the narrator’s focus from his mission to his need to be liked and excepted by his comrades.

Later, in the following chapter, the chain-link is mentioned after the narrator finds himself in the home of a married white woman. In the scene with her, the tables are somewhat turned in contrast to his experience in chapter 1. There, the naked white woman he saw was objectified and humiliated by white men to further his humiliation along with the other black boys. However, in chapter 19 it is the narrator who is perceived as less than. The woman begins by offering him the choice between milk, like an animal, or wine, like a respectable human being. This confuses IM, but highlights the idea that he is the one being used for a white woman’s enjoyment now. The violence that the Invisible Man craves in response to his simultaneous desire for the woman is ever present in this chapter as it was in the first. When all is done, he finds himself nervous about the events that have transpired and upon receiving a phone call from the married white woman, “toys with the chain link in his pocket”. This subtlety reveals the idea discussed by the narrator prior, of duty versus desire and represents the shackles placed upon, not only black men, but men in general through lust and desire. This is a powerful moment because feminism and women is not some thing that is discussed in depth throughout the novel or is acknowledged in the narrator’s world, as he is sent to speak to the women as punishment from the brotherhood. However, although it is not obvious, the connection to the shackle and the woman gives her a power that was absent for the woman described at the start of the novel.

The “battle royal” depicted in Chapter 1 is a complex, surreal passage that makes great demands of us as readers. Each element of the scene seems richly symbolic, from the blindfolds to the coins to the striptease to the speech that culminates it. What are some of the implications of this scene? What do they tell us about how racial and other differences (gender,class) are constructed and maintained in this society? What’s the difference between the way we might read this episode and the way the IM himself reads it in the moment?

While I read this chapter, I could not help but think of Zora Neale Hurston and her attitude towards racial inequality. I thought of the scene where she describes purposefully performing for the enjoyment of white spectators. The battle royal scene in this novel differs exponentially from Hurston’s recollection of such event. Hurston embraces her expectations to perform, whereas in Ellison’s account of such performance is not only forced, but extremely violent. The boys are pinned against each other like a modern day cockfight. To escalate the severity of the situation, they are blindfolded. In a way, this removes their identity from themselves, as well as from their counterparts. It’s easy to swing at something you cannot even see and even easier to keep swinging when you cannot see the blood being shed, or when your own survival depends on it. I took this element as a motif interpreted literally to represent the “Invisible Man” Ellison used to title the book.

The implications of this scene are plenty. The first being that black people are the inferior race and in being so are seen as less than human. The white men in this chapter first took advantage of the narrator’s excitement towards pursuing an education, and then used fear to manipulate him into degrading himself to do as they say. The fear was not primarily of death, but of not being able to deliver his speech. Early on here, the connection and thirst for education is established and continues throughout the novel. The fight and the rug was done purely for their enjoyment and its intention was revealed at the falsity of the coins thrown over the rug. Another interesting moment was the introduction of the naked woman. Although she holds more privilege than the narrator and his friends, it is not highlighted in this chapter. She is also objectified and used as entertainment for the men. Fear stops her from refusing to be thrown about and touched in a way in which the narrator observes is not okay to her. She is used as a sex symbol to further the humiliation the boys are being succumbed to. This tells me that these social constructs are primarily founded on fear and promises of lending out privilege. What I mean by that is like dangling a carrot in front of a horse to get it to move. It is the same idea with the speech and the narrator. However, the fear and violence used by the white men is another necessary element in achieving these societal hierarchies.

In the moment IM does not seem to read into the connotations of what is occurring. He does not look at the white men with hate, but instead aims to gain their approval. Throughout all of the terrible events, he continues his focus on delivering the speech, which drives his behavior in said events. As we read it, we are disgusted with the events that are transpiring and are aware of its underlying fuel of hatred and inequality.

“On Whiteness and the Racial Imaginary” caught me by surprise. Growing up I was not aware on my Latin-ness. I knew, of course, that I was Puerto Rican, but I did not experience it from an “otherness” point of view (or a third party view as Fanon would label it). As I grew into an adult and became aware of racial injustices throughout history and in the present, I became aware. I became aware of my differences from the world and perspectives of white people, as well as that of black people. In doing so, I also had to recognize my differences from other members of the Latinx community–the community I am a part of. Broken into categories of race and then subcategories, such as:  melanin and residency status. I, too, have privilege. Albeit not as much as a white man in America, but more than the Afro-Latina who was born here, and even moreso that the Mexican woman who escaped the persecution by gang members in her village and worked her ass of to become an American citizen. I am a Puerto Rican (which, as a territory of the US buys me some sort of privilege), I was born and raised here in the US, and my complexion is light– even lighter than my own brother’s. Again, although this does not equate me to a white man here in America, it allows me to move through the world in ways easier than say, my brother. At least when it comes to racial standards. I’ll save the talk of sexism for another day.

What surprised me about “On Whiteness and the Racial Imaginary” was how it called me out on something that was right under my nose, but that I had never stopped to consider before, partly because of that privilege. I don’t think I have ever stopped to consider if a book with a “minority” character had been written by a white author, or what that would even mean. I also assumed that imagination would render it okay, or if an author did enough research maybe they can get it right, but this essay revealed otherwise. This is not to say that white writers should never portray these characters, but as the essay argues, they should ask the reasons behind it, as opposed to how they can go about doing it. I love the argument that our imagination is shaped by our experiences, making it limited. As kids we are taught that our imagination has no bounds and we just learn to believe that. But the argument made here was like a light going on. How can I know what that woman fleeing Mexico even feels or experienced if I never did? And how much of what I THINK I know is not shaped by my own life or by what society projects to be her truth? The same goes for white authors writing for black characters and scenarios. Society, whether they like it or not, has put confines on the writers’ imagination, so that he or she only produces the same tropes that have been read many times before. The writers of this essay also point out how unjust it actually is for white authors to transcend into their black protagonists, as they have an “all-access” pass due to their privilege. Their black counterparts can only begin from a place of being addressed, and even so, it is argued that they cannot write for other black people because their experiences may not be alike either (like myself, for example, with other Latinxs).

A reference to a veil is made in this essay that reminded me of the veil discussed by W.E.B. Du Bois. Although, his veil referred to the double consciousness black people experienced life in, this essay connects the veil to the white authors. In “On Whiteness and the Racial Imaginary” it is said that when white authors get it wrong and are addressed by the black community, they play the victim.

“Their whiteness has veiled them from their own power to wound.”

This veil is not a consciousness of oneself that comes from the perception of others. Instead, it is a veil of privilege, making white writers “unknowing” of the damage they caused and allowing them to be the victim.

This essay has provided me with a perspective that I will not easily shake and I look forward to utilizing it into my readings of literature going forward.