"Visible" Man

So I was casually looking up Henry Dumas because I wanted to find out how he or his work was influenced by his time stationed in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything about that (and I’m a bit skeptical if he was really affected by his time there since he would’ve been around other soldiers who share his language and culture and so it’s unlikely he would have spent much time out and about in Saudi Arabia absorbing complex Arabic poetry that Arabs themselves have trouble understanding.)

However, I did find something that would be of more interest to this class. After the death of Henry Dumas, Jeffery B. Leak wrote a biography on him titled Visible Man (that’s right, as opposed to “Invisible Man”.) The book focuses on Dumas and his art in the context of Black Art, Black Power, and the Civil Rights Movement. As discussed in class, Dumas was shot and killed by a policeman in his early thirties.

My opinion: I don’t think Visible Man is the best title to give Dumas’ biography unless given out of irony. Of course Dumas had a lot of influence and wrote very important works for African American literature, but I also feel his invisibility to be similar to the narrator’s. The biggest evidence of that to me is his death: an example of police brutality and a killing primarily based off of skin color. Dumas wasn’t visible to everyone, otherwise he wouldn’t have been killed. Maybe I’m being too skeptical though (?)  

Opinions?

Let There be Shade!

The narrator's shades that he buys to hide himself from Ras' people end up allowing him to see everything in a new light. But what I thought was very interesting was that Ellison made it so that the narrator was able to see more clearly when everything was darker. The narrator has been whitewashed throughout his entire life. Remember the beginning of the book? The narrator is literally used as a source of entertainment for a crowd of white men and he didn’t question it. But the shades help him see more clearly, even though the narrator explicitly says, “I could barely see; it was almost dark now, and the streets swarmed in a green vagueness.” By putting the shades on, the narrator sees a world that the Brotherhood (a white ruled organization) has not even noticed. People that the narrator would see every day, like those at the saloon, treat him completely different. His friends, strangers, officials, church-going Christians, women, nobody could recognize the narrator even though he is described as being an infamous speaker.

The darkness of the shades allows the narrator to explore and learn more about how he doesn’t know. He thinks he knows Harlem but he’s only seen it through the glass eye of Jack, a white male. When he sees it through the dark shades of Rinehart, the narrator is able to see more of Harlem and more of himself. He realizes what Bledsoe what trying to explain to him and how he’s been played over and over again. And he realizes all of this just but putting on another layer of black.

What do you guys think?

White or Black, These Men All the Same

Which men are all the same? To be specific: the superintendent, Mr. Norton, Dr. Bledsoe, Emerson Jr., the Doctor, and Brother Jack. Each man looks at the narrator and wants to "keep him running." They want to both mold him to somebody who can and will follow a path that leads to no ultimate success and that they deem best for themselves or the narrator. The superintendent, Bledsoe, and Emerson Jr. all hand the narrator papers that take him on to a new chapter in his life that doesn't really benefit the narrator at all (you could argue that Emerson's letter got the narrator a job, but Emerson was still doing it out of a want to defy his father and the job was awful in and of itself.) Mr. Norton tells the narrator that he is literally in charge of Norton’s fate and he wants the college to mold students like the narrator to follow through with Norton's fate, again not treating the narrator like an independent individual, but rather somebody who they can use to represent what they think a black man like the narrator should be. The doctor(s) from the factory are physically trying to rewire the narrator into what they want a black man to be. 
Brother Jack also fits in to this category of men who want to mold the narrator. He sees (much like the superintendent) a skill the narrator has to give speeches and he tries to exploit that. He sees the narrator as a tool to spread the Brotherhood's rhetoric and as a sort of "poster child" for the Brotherhood since he is a black man and the Brotherhood s mostly white. Similarly to the job the narrator took at the factory, he is only working for the Brotherhood because of financial reasons. Yes the narrator does not seem to fully agree with what the Brotherhood wants and he definitely is more skeptical than before his accident at the factory, but I would argue that the Brotherhood is still "keeping him running" because the narrator does nothing to undermine or defy their authority and control over him. All his skeptical-ness is in his head and he has a long ways to go before completely following the advice from his grandfather.

Speaking of the grandfather, do you guys think that he fits into the same category as the men above? I think an argument could be made that he does since he is sort of trying to mold his grandson into what he believes a black man should be. Thoughts?

"Something in Me is Lost, Forever Lost..."

As you all know, I read the poem “Outcast” by Claude McKay for my poetry reading. Here’s a complete blog post explaining why I chose to recite that poem:

To me, the poem “Outcast” represented the idea of wanting to own and belong to a culture that I directly relate to, yet am displaced from in time and in distance. This summer, I decided to record an interview with my grandfather who was born in 1920 Palestine in attempt to save his legacy and story. In my eyes, my grandfather is the epitome of Palestinian culture as he was born before the violent establishment of Israel and still stayed on his land and made/sold his own olive oil while also building homes for Palestinian villagers.

In hearing his story, I realized that—no matter how much I try—I cannot be the Palestinian that my grandfather is (or was.) If you know anything about Palestine, you’ll know that in 1948 it was officially occupied by the State of Israel and currently exists under an apartheid military rule of oppression of the native Palestinian people. I’ve longed to bring back and belong to the Palestinian culture of my grandfather and his ancestors: a culture pre-Israel. But that culture is not only separated physically from me, but also in time. I only get a glimpse of that culture from my grandfather who is my last living grandparent. I am literally witnessing to that “original” (non-western) Palestinian culture slowly dying.

In its place: a powerful Palestinian culture that is fighting for freedom and basic human rights. (Still a beautiful culture and one I am very much proud to come from and embody.) I’m lucky enough to still know the language and general culture of Palestine, but of course living in America makes me more detached to Palestine than my parents. And if I end up staying in America, and from me comes the third and fourth and fifth generation of Palestinian-Americans, each one will continue to slowly detach from that culture until it is completely erased from their lives.

<image: me and my grandfather.>

"Something in me is lost, forever lost,
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,
And I must walk the way of life a ghost,
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;

For I was born far from my native clime,
Under the white man's menace, out of time."