Criticism Of Racism In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

In many ways, the criticism of racist culture in Invisible Man extends further to an element of homophobia that contributes to racism in American culture. As Kim writes, Invisible Man “gives voice to a particular intuition about the psychic motivations of white men: that they derive a specifically erotic gratification from their racist practices” (Kim 309). This speaks to the particular sense of nearly-sexual power they derive from putting down those they feel superior to, and therefore can dominate; scholars liken this to the same practices used in sexist culture (Kim 309). In the case of both women and blacks, the discrimination they experience by white men can be equally described as a means of asserting the Other’s femininity; to that end,
With his experience in the Jim Crow South and his experiences with leftist politics, Ellison took the strong view that racism was inherent to the entrenched systems of American life, and that no true peace could be found without a change in that structure. This is shown by the unattributed letter that Ellison’s narrator receives late in the book which reads: “You are from the South and you know that this is a white man's world. So take a friendly advice and go easy so that you can keep on helping the colored people. They do not want you to go too fast and will cut you down if you do” (Ellison 296). In this way, Ellison notes the tremendous threat that a black revolution and the improvement of race relations could mean for American society – instead of shying away from that for his own personal safety, Ellison tacitly encourages it by showing that little would change for African-Americans if they did not work to change the
One possible method for improvement is the school of Afrofuturism, which is “an international aesthetic movement concerned with the relations of science, technology, and race, [which] appropriates the narrative techniques of science fiction to put a black face on the future” (Yaszek 297). While there is nothing explicitly science fiction about Invisible Man itself, Ellison marks a certain set of social goals and objectives for his readers that could provide future benefits and advancements for blacks in American society. For example, Ellison uses science fiction language to examine the racism of this culure, describing college students as “robots,” and the black Vet the narrator encounters as “a mechanical man” – a black factory worker talks about himself and his fellow workers as “the machines inside the machine” (Ellison 36, 94, 217). These trappings use unique language to help describe the distance and alienation blacks feel in white culture, like they are somehow automatons incapable of expressing their own inner