Celebrate Black History with Loco #3: Ralph Waldo Ellison
A big part of my motivation for writing “Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a racist” were my experiences with the dehumanizing effect of stereotyping. That is, another group’s inability to see me as an individual. It’s a quite common practice in the world, unfortunately, but minorities in any society tend to get hit with it the most. One of the results of this is this brand of dehumanization is a feeling of invisibility, of being lost under a cloak of stereotypes and not truly full-fledged member of society.
This phenomenon was best captured, IMHO, in the words of Ralph Ellison.
I remember when I was in grade school, I was assigned to write a book report. The name of the book was “Invisible Man.” I was a big Abbott and Costello fan, so naturally I thought it was going to be a creepy tale about, well, an invisible man.
It was…and it wasn’t.
It was about a man, alright. And it was very creepy. Gave me nightmares. Not the kind of book I think should be assigned to 12 and 13 year olds. I was an avid reader, though, and devoured books for fun. But, this one…it was the first book I’d ever read that scared the shit outta me despite the fact I could hardly understand it. I just knew the parts I didn’t understand would scare me all the more.
For example, in the first chapter named “Battle Royal” – a wicked example of understatement – a nameless “ginger-colored” boy, expecting to give a speech and receive a scholarship from some drunken white benefactors, is forced (after watching a naked blond women dance around) to fight 8 other black boys in a ring, all blindfolded, for the white guys’ amusement. Then, after blindly beating the shit out of one another, they were paid, but the money was placed on, unbeknownst to them, an electrified rug and they had to fight one another to retrieve the coins. Then, battered, bleeding and electrocuted, and subject to repeated interruptions replete with racial slurs and other insults of the debased nature, including the editing out, under threat of violence, of the word “equality,” he was allowed to give his speech and receive his scholarship.
WTF right?
- Ralph Waldo Ellison
While public school kids were reading Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye (two of the greatest books ever written IMHO), at the behest of my teachers I was reading this book.
Even at that age I knew that I was not Ellison’s target audience. I was the wrong age, and probably the wrong race, too. Ellison was part of the Harlem Renaissance’s black intelligentsia, and this book was written in a style only fellow intelligentsia, or at least well-educated or well-read folk could fully grasp. His target was white people.
At least I used to think so. Now I think it was written for thinkers of any race.
Ralph Ellison won the National Book Award in 1953 for this novel, full of surreal imagery and symbolism. It’s held up as one of the 100 greatest American novels ever written.
I still can’t read it without feeling chills. Without feeling myself disappearing into the eerie landscape of the dream world he fabricated. A dream world forged by the dehumanizing impact of living in a society racially charged predominantly by white hate and ignorance.
Today, I’d like to take a moment and thank Mr. Ellison for writing a book that without a doubt leaves the reader, regardless of race, creed or color, with full recognition of what it feels like to be invisible…and for those who already feel invisible, how to materialize before the eyes of those that would negate your singular existence.
Loco
PS: In case you didn’t know, your boy Loco is looking a place in black history right in the face with the publishing of his critically acclaimed first book: Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist! (now available from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble online!).
This book reflects my own knowledge and love of black history, which began with my parents making sure I learned it in lieu of “American” or “Eurocentric” history from the tender age of six.
This book is more than about life in Japan. It is a memoir of my active participation in several major movements and events in modern day history, both black and otherwise, both beautiful and horrid, and how these events have helped shape my current world view for the better! Don’t take my word for it. LET READERS TELL YOU: See what they’ve said here on Amazon
Get your copy here.
For more info, check out the book’s webpage here: www.himynameisloco.com
Raw Like Sushi
Surprisingly, you talking about another book was what made me buy your book. It doesn’t hurt that you have been ramming it down our throats for a while now, as you should as a published author, but I wanted to find this book called “invisible man” and thought I might buy yours as well.
I thought your pieces about your early life and in the military and confronting racism were amazing so I’m sure the book will be the same.
Just reading the first few lines on the kindle I am getting excited, your style is beautiful.
Though I do have to agree with the Salaryman, I dont like the cover. I look at it and I think of a comic book. I had someone look over my shoulder when they saw me buying the book, and I felt like I needed to explain to them, that contrary to what it looks like, this is NOT some light hearted read. Or I think it will be, I haven’t read it yet so I cant say.
Good luck with the book.
Golly
by the way, do you actually walk around with a backpack or is that just the artists creative license?