"White Liberalism" in Invisible Man

Though our discussion of the "white liberal" phenomenon has mostly occurred during the Native Son section of this class, I feel that Invisible Man offers an even more thought-provoking and nuanced spin on the archetype. Mary and Jan might have SOME good intentions, but are crippled by their ignorance of racial barriers with the oppressed, fearful Bigger Thomas, and their general self-indulgent attitudes for acting all buddy-buddy with a black person. In Invisible Man, the narrator mostly explores the dynamic while working with white people, whether it be chauffeuring Mr, Norton, his discussion with Mr. Emerson, or the passive-aggressive revisionist racism of the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood especially goes to show what happens when the tenets of white liberalism are formed into a constructed ideology, which has a sound concluding vision but very poor methods of interracial interaction that result in racist erasure.

Norton's ignorance is from the upper-class educator perspective; he is shielded from the realities of the black world around his campus and is utterly shocked to find the surrounding areas of his campus different from what he promotes inside. Like the others, he thinks himself a friend of the "black people", yet comes across with more of a savior complex than a true ally towards the civil rights of another race. "I felt even as a young man that your people were somehow closely connected with my destiny" he explains to the narrator, on the topic of his educational interest (41). Lines like "Yes, you are my fate, young man" are utterly patronizing and pressuring for the timid narrator, who simply wants to get this interaction over with before anything goes wrong (which is unsuccessful of course) (42). If Norton were a true believer in racial justice that had a good picture of what the African-American community needed, he would not refer to an uneducated black man as a "defective cog" (45), nor would he react so strongly and inappropriately to Trueblood's story. Norton is initially disgusted and appalled, not believing that a member of the race he tries to help could do something so "monstrous" (49). After he speaks with Trueblood and hears in grave detail what exactly went down, his action of giving him a hundred-dollar bill seems much less a gesture of help rather than an exchange for a tabloid commodity: compensation for a good shock. Perhaps his intentions are somewhat justified—after all, what would one do in that situation—yet his incredulity that something like this can happen shows just how unseeing Norton is of the big picture compared to his elevated self-worth for his “activism” in the black community.  

Emerson’s white liberalism is a bit less obvious and harmful to the narrator than the other two, but nonetheless definitely exists. Though at first Emerson seems to be speaking conversationally with the narrator, he feels the need to name drop the “Club Calamus”, a trendy Harlem rendezvous that Emerson clearly prides himself in going to, especially in front of a black guy. Like Stefon from SNL with self-congratulating racist undertones (“Harlem’s hottest club is…”). Later on, he also mentions his “friends are jazz musicians” and that he “knows the conditions” under which the narrator lives, which harken some serious Jan and Mary flashbacks about knowing the plight of the black man and what not (188). The true kicker of the conversation is when Emerson asks the narrator to “speak with utter frankness” towards him, in a fairly unnecessary and discomfiting tangent:

What I mean is, do you believe it possible for us, the two of us, to throw off the mask of custom and manners that insulate man from man, and converse in naked honesty and frankness?

Though Emerson wants to speak with the narrator on normal terms, the way to do so is not to make so painfully obvious your racial differences, but to keep speaking like a normal person. I found this to be one of the most cringe-worthy scenes in the whole book, because the narrator clearly wants to figure out this important message and move on, but Emerson hinders him with babble about being equals and forgetting race when it doesn’t need to be an issue at all! The message eventually gets through to the narrator, but not without some frustration with Emerson’s white liberal self-indulgence and pandering.

And of course, one cannot talk about uncomfortable race relations without referring to the Brotherhood at some point. The narrator’s time with the Brotherhood is so expansive that it’s hard to even pick which incidents to talk about. Their motives are initially hazy when the narrator is grabbed after his eviction speech for the seeming wrong reasons. The first scene in Brother Jack’s lair is loaded with aggressive white liberalism, such as the strong reaction to the narrator being asked to sing a spiritual. Without him getting a word in edgewise, Brother Jack goes nuclear on the drunkard for even suggesting that the narrator would sing a spiritual, and removes him from the premises. This ridiculous reaction to a fairly innocuous bit of racism and generalization shows Jack’s motives are not listening to the black community and incorporating them into his Brotherhood vision, but instead making blatantly obvious what he thinks is best for the race. Jack relentlessly tries to make members of the Brotherhood forget their differences, and having a black man sing a spiritual is out of that vision. The lady that approaches him afterwards relishes in resisting the temptation to hear him sing. “I would never ask one of our colored brothers to sing, even though I love to hear them. That would be a very backward thing.” (314). The narrator is completely puzzled by this, because after all, what is exactly wrong with asking a black person to sing? Sure, the guy that asked him was obviously out of line and thought of black people as jukeboxes, but her and Jack’s reactions are so uncalled for and demonstrate just how blind the white liberal ideology can be. The problem is the guy, not the fact that the narrator was asked to sing! However, the most harmful instances of the Brotherhood in this sense are with Brother Tarp’s leg chain and the death of Tod Clifton. Brother Wrestrum completely meddles with the narrator’s standing in the Brotherhood for receiving Brother Tarp’s leg chain. “I don’t think we ought to dramatize our differences” Wrestrum reasons for his outrage (392). Though it is clear that the narrator wants to keep it as a symbol for himself and the oppression he’s fighting against, Wrestrum exposes the true colors of the Brotherhood: racist revisionism and hiding the truth of history instead of utilizing it for social change. Wrestrum’s testament to the Brotherhood totally jeopardizes the narrator’s position, over such a completely petty circumstance. Finally, their treatment of Clifton’s death is nothing short of sickening. They call their youth organizer a “traitorous merchant of vile instruments of anti-Negro, anti-minority racist bigotry” for selling these stupid Sambo dolls for some cash, when he was gunned down by the police for not having a license (466)! Their real concern is dissociating themselves from anything that could hurt their organization, rather than tackling issues that matter (such as murder by racist police). This is white liberalism taken to its most harmful extent, trying to erase the race card from all given situations and project a different false reality, no matter how contradictory it may be to their original message.

The narrator ends up realizing this on his own later in the novel, and sums up this racist treatment he’s been facing from these white figures:

And now I looked around a corner of my mind and saw Jack and Norton and Emerson merge into one single white figure. They were very much the same, each attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither giving a hoot in hell for how things looked to me. I was simply a material, a natural resource to be used. I had switched from the arrogant absurdity of Norton and Emerson to that of Jack and the Brotherhood, and it all came out the same—except now I recognize my invisibility. (508)

The Vicious Cycle of Black Education as Portrayed by Invisible Man

The narrator of Invisible Man—at least initially—is a budding member of the educated black class, or “conscientious elite” on the black respectability wheel (shout-out to Mr. Sutton). In the context of 1920’s America, that seemed a great place to be for any black man who grew up poor. But as he does repeatedly throughout the novel, Ellison pulls the rug out from under readers to expose just how cutthroat and fragile the obtainment and maintenance of power for black people really is, especially in the education system. The main insights of this dynamic we get in Invisible Man are that of the budding scholar (the Narrator), and the longtime power-holder (Bledsoe). Through these two figures, we come to understand the self-destructive cycle of black education; with the little success that the African-American community gets comes a pressing need to maintain that prestige, which turns successful black people against the lower, poorer classes for “dragging them down”, and creates a mutual dislike from the lower classes and an even lower reputation for the race as a whole, ending in even fewer black successes.

The first picture—in the Narrator’s own depiction at least—we get of our protagonist is one that “schools” his way to privilege coming out of high school. He will deliver a speech and be presented with a scholarship to a University by the school officials, but only once he finishes a disgusting Battle Royal, and with a bloody mouth at that. Though it is clear that the white educators think very little of him, he still goes along with all of their scheme, and still believes that they are doing what’s best for him. Because in the case of the Narrator, the way he succeeded was by believing in the oppressive system that allowed him extensive education. But as he soon learns from Bledsoe, (and his grandpa!) the way to maintain this power is to play along with the system, but never to believe in it, and vanquish anything that could possibly harm it. After the Narrator comes back from his escapade with Mr Norton, Bledsoe is absolutely furious to both his unawareness of gaming the system and the threat he poses to Bledsoe and the whole college. “You’re black and living in the south, did you forget to lie!” Bledsoe exclaims, “the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie!” (139). Bledsoe is intimately familiar with how fragile his power really is, and the Narrator’s incompetency with the system is promptly rewarded with expulsion from the college. The Narrator’s college experience and encounter with Bledsoe inform the beginning of this cycle.

Ellison also shows the class conflict within African-American elite and working/poor class. For one, the Narrator holds serious contempt for lower class black people, such as Trueblood, the Vet, and even his own grandparents at one point. After him and Norton exit from the Golden Day, he becomes intensely apologetic for everything they had seen:

I wanted to stop the car and talk with Mr. Norton, to beg his pardon for what he had seen; to plead and show him tears, unashamed tears like those of a child before his parent; to denounce all we’d seen and heard; to assure him that far from being like any of the people we had seen, I hated them, that I believed in the principles of the Founder with all my heart and soul (…) (99)

Clearly, the Narrator in this instance is completely caught in the cycle; his need to maintain success makes him want to grovel in front of this white donor, and show just how much he hates unhinged black people unlike himself. Bledsoe holds this cutthroat mentality as well, to an even farther extreme:

“I’ve made my place (...) and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs if it means staying where I am” (143).

This is just a small glimpse into the cycle Invisible Man eludes to. Thanks to the whitewashing system of education, one can see how much cyclical harm can be inflicted on the black community, literally turning them against each other and preventing further access to power. What Ellison demonstrates is not a race combining to “wear the mask” of invisibility for the greater good, but only individuals coming to wear it in power in increasingly fewer numbers. 

The Natural Symbols of Native Son

Let me preface with this; I'm a sucker for symbolism. I feel I've done a touch too many assignments on the topic during my academic career, but with so many books just brimming with it, how can one resist!

Native Son is, in my view, a very dichotomous book with various binary forces converging all at once. White and black, rich and poor, man and woman, communism and capitalism, life and death, fear and control, the list goes on. For a book driven by simplified, powerful forces such as these, symbolism becomes all the more effective in conveying its themes. Often times in this particular novel, one will find these allusions in the environment Wright creates for Bigger, going along with the naturalism we've discussed of him. So let's take a look!

One of Wright's favorite symbols in Native Son is the simplest of them all; color. Repeatedly, Wright barrages readers with decidedly black and white imagery, objects, and scenes to represent the racial root of Bigger's problems and anxieties. Especially in book two, where his fear reaches several climaxes, Wright unnecessarily (?) adds increasing figures that are either black or white. Take the first couple pages of Flight. He sees Mary's "black purse", looks at his blade with its "dried ridges of black blood", grips a pamphlet in his "black fingers" which at the bottom has a "black and white picture of a hammer and curving knife" as well as a "white hand clasping a black hand" (98). All of that is on the SAME PAGE, the second page of book two! Maybe I'm as paranoid as Bigger, but I don't think I'd always describe a purse, blood, my fingers, and a picture with their respective color in such quick succession of one another. The list goes on; the Dalton's snowy Chicago estate looms "white and silent" (116). As he puts Mary's corpse into the furnace, he sees a "white cat" staring back at him (91).He sees Mrs Dalton the day after the murder "dressed in white, her pale face as it had been when she was standing in the darkness", with "eyes almost as white as her face and her hair and her dress" (127, 128). It goes along with his perception of white people as a "force", creeping closer to Bigger's inevitable demise (114). Perhaps Bigger puts it best for showing how this form of  symbolism gets to the origin of his dilemmas:

"(...) she would not want to hear him tell of how drunk her daughter had been. After all, he was black and she was white. He was poor and she was rich." (128).

In tandem with these tinted reminders of Bigger's racial struggle and conflict, several scenes in the novel either predestine the protagonist or take on new symbolic meaning. The first scene of Native Son  starts us off with some solid foreshadowing. In a stressful opening, Bigger Thomas and Family wake up to a nasty rat invading their dingy household. In sum, Bigger chases around the rat with a skillet until the rat, with all escape holes covered up by Bigger,  bares "long yellow fangs" out of fear, with his "belly quivering", until Bigger smashes it with a shoe. This quite obviously mirrors the ending episode of Book Two, with Bigger as the rat, and the massive encroaching white police force, or even just white society in general as Bigger. Both are backed into inescapable corners, and out of crushing fear and desperation, react with violence. Even the disgusted monikers the Thomas family give the rat ("Gee, he's a big bastard", "sonofabitch could cut your throat") later remind us of the brutish negative remarks given by the white members of Bigger's trial towards him in Book Three.

My other favorite example would have to be the case of the furnace. It's very brief, but in Bigger's interactions with the furnace, it seems to have a curse-like effect on him, possibly as a consequence of his guilt. For one, after he puts Mary there, almost every time he comes down to the furnace with others, he always thinks about killing them. He hatches the idea of murdering the white cat that sees him pouring Dalton's body into the furnace before he remembers that "cats can't talk" (91). He even thinks about murdering Peggy when she comes down with him the next morning, though she never even looks into the furnace. When Mr. Dalton comes down into the basement and finds out that Mary did not in fact go to school yesterday, the awkward silence between them is filled with mention that "the furnace droned" in the background, and again when he explains Jan exploits to Britten, and as both are immediately after Bigger lies to someone, it seems that the ghost of Mary Dalton is beckoning for attention at the site of her cremation (165, 166). Finally, a bit after he delivers the ransom note, he approaches the furnace and his body is overtaken with dread:

"A strange sensation enveloped him. Something tingled in his stomach and on his scalp. His knees wobbled, giving way. He stumbled to the wall and leaned against it weakly. A wave of numbness spread fanwise from his stomach over his entire body, including his head and eyes, making his mouth gap. Strength ebbed from him. He sank to his knees and pressed his fingers to the floor to keep from tumbling over. And organic sense of dread seized him. His teeth chattered and he felt sweat sliding down his armpits and back. He groaned, holding as still as possible, His vision was blurred; but gradually it cleared. Again he saw the furnace. Then he realized he had been on the verge of collapse. Soon the glare and drone of the fire came to his eyes and ears." (185)

So yeah. I think I'll just let that paragraph speak for itself. The description evokes a dominating force guilt and anguish, coming back to bite him for his horrible crime, just when he thought he could game the system. This particular passage really won me over to the powers of symbolism in this book. But hey, call me on my comprehensive B.S if you think I'm a whackjob for all this. Or agree with me, that's always fine too.