Part 1 Ralph Ellison
As I sit here, I long for freedom…. Freedom from my wheelchair, freedom from a crippling disease, free from all the fears I have for my family. Freedom. Still, all the ideas of freedom fall short. They all feel too transitory, too fleeting, and empty. If I were free from my wheelchair, what would I do? Probably go to work, come home exhausted and just prepare for the next day. If I were free from my crippling disease, I would probably waste time playing golf…. I will never be free of fear of my family’s future. Perhaps I feel empty because I don’t know what it means to be free.
I know what it means to seek liberation not but freedom.
Maybe it is not freedom that I am seeking after. Maybe, it is something else; maybe I am trying to understand what it means to be human.
I realized that to reflect on this question I need help. So where do I turn? In an attempt to analyze this question, I turned to four authors that helped shape my understanding of the world.
The first author I turned to was Ralph Ellison’s novel, “Invisible Man.” I have to say that I do not think I have found a better work that explores Black identity formation than this book. Ellison’s unnamed protagonist finds himself in the world where his identity is constantly shaped by others. Be it his teachers, his family, his coworkers, or others fighting for freedom. Let me take a quick break and suggest that if you have not read this work that you read it. From my reading of the text the unnamed protagonist constantly tries to change his identity based on the situation that he is in because he is never seen.
“I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids — and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” (Ellison, Invisible Man, P1)
Ellison diagnoses the problem of black life in the United States of America. We long for visibility in a world where people refuse to see us. This longing is a problem that I think far too many of us have embodied. We refuse to see our communities outside of an idea of respectability. Far too often we villainize our inner cities without truly seeing the people who are there or why things are the way they are. We refuse to see our children and treat them as an extension of ourselves. We become embarrassed when they are too bad or too active. We are embarrassed when they act out, not because they acted out, but because it reflects on our sense of self. We view our spouses as commodities. If our spouse doesn’t meet the criteria that we think they should, they are discarded. The embodiment of those around us is never important. The people around us become important for what they can do for us rather than who they are. Our families become important to us because they help shape how the world sees us.
“You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it’s seldom successful.” (Ellison, p4)
This ache brings with-it real-life consequences. This ache only brings with it pain. There seems to be no cure for the way that we are viewed by the world around us. Well then what’s left? Insanity! It is no wonder then the unnamed protagonist is driven to insanity. He loses his mind until he realizes this fact and finds freedom in being invisible. He finds freedom from the world by simply not trying to assume any of the identities the world tries to place on him.While I appreciate and love the literary skill of Ralph Ellison, I do not find true freedom or humanity in the unnamed protagonist’s final solution, but I do get it. The answer is unsatisfying because it is incomplete. What Ellison shows us is that there is no freedom in accepting the labels that have been placed upon us. True liberation begins when we no longer need to view ourselves through the eyes of others.
Black and Broken 
Leave a comment