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Josue Fuentes

Canek Pena-Vargas

Political Studies B

12 January 2018

Invisibility

All powerful career driven women are single and lonely. All Latinos are here illegally.

All Muslims are terrorists. All white people are racist. All African Americans are on welfare.

Many people can relate to the experience of stereotyping. As much as we would like to believe

that we, as a society, have steered away from grouping people based on their gender, race or

ethnicity, we unfortunately have not. Although we have made great progress, prejudice and

stereotyping is still pervasively embedded in our society today. Ralph Ellison published the

novel, ​Invisible Man​, in 1952. Ellison wrote his brilliant novel at the time when the second great

migration of African Americans who were denied equal rights in the South were moving to the

North in order to have better living conditions away from harsh discriminating policies.

According to Ellison, being invisible is to be misconstrued by society as a recollection of

stereotypes rather than an individual with unique qualities. One can become visible by voicing

their authentic beliefs and speaking the truth even if people might not agree with it. An example

of invisibility in our contemporary society is the misconception that citizens often have about

immigrants.

For a long time American society has been placing labels on certain groups of people.

The people that belong to these groups become nothing but a stereotype associated with the

ethnic or racial group they belong to. This makes them invisible, not because they cannot be
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seen, but rather because they are seen as something they are not. In the novel ​Invisible Man​ the

narrator introduces himself as “an invisible man.” The narrator explains that it is not a biological

issue. Rather,ut he is invisible because people refuse to see him, “When they approach me they

see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and

anything except me” (Ellison 3). When the narrator talks about “my surroundings”, he is talking

about the neighborhood he lives in. When Ellison says “Themselves” he is assuming that their

experiences are the same as those who are “invisible”. Finally when the narrator talks about

“figments of their imaginations, he is referring to the misconceptions others have of him. The

narrator acknowledges that society does not see him for himself, for his individuality, but rather

for the image that they have created of him.

Ellison creates both a clear and an ambiguous image of what it is like to be invisible.

Throughout his novel he drops small hints of how one can become visible. In ​Invisible Man,​ the

narrator recalls the event where he was invited to give a speech in front of white community

leaders. When he arrived at the school, he was surprised by the fact that he was going to

participate in a battle royal, which consisted of a group of young African American men

fighting. After the battle royal, where he was badly hurt, the narrator still gave his speech.

Through most of his speech the audience, which consisted of mostly white men, ignored him and

talked over him. However he made a mistake that caused the audience to get upset. He

remembers, “I made the a mistake and yelled a phrase I had often seen denounced in newspaper

editorials, heard debate in private. ‘Social… Equality’” (Ellison 31). At the moment when the

narrator made the mistake of saying the words “Social Equality,” the men who were in the

audience felt a threat to their superiority because for an instant the narrator was himself, not the
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animalistic fighter he was stereotyped as. Despite the fact that the narrator said it was a mistake

that he said social equality, we can see that he became visible if even for just a moment. The

audience stopped seeing him as the African American boy who just got beat up and started

seeing him as someone who speaks his mind.

People are still invisible in our contemporary society. In the most recent presidential

election, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump made some remarks that prove how

stereotyping and prejudice still take place today. Donald Trump made these remarks about

immigrants, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best… They’re sending

people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing

drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists…” (Huerta). What the president is doing by

saying this about immigrants is putting every immigrant into a group that are true for few, if

none at all. Most immigrants come to this country looking for better opportunities and in the

process they contribute to our economy. This is the narrative that becomes invisible because it

goes against society’s prejudices.

We can all relate to the feeling of invisibility. According to Ellison’s book, invisibility is

to be labeled by society and remain in the shadows of those labels to the extent that you are no

longer viewed as an individual person. It may seem impossible to escape the shadow of those

labels, but its not entirely impossible. Even today we still see examples of how certain groups of

people are made invisible. Biological races do not exist. They are a product of human

imagination, with the purpose to further certain economic and political agendas. We all belong to

the same race: the Human race.

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Works Cited

Ellison, Ralph. ​Invisible Man. ​Vintage Book, 1995.

Huerta, Alvaro. “The ‘War On Immigrants’: Racist Policies In The Trump Era.” ​Huffpost​, Oath
Inc., 7 August 2017,
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-war-on-immigrants-racist-policies-in-the-trum
p_us_5980bf68e4b0d187a596909b​. 22 Jan. 2018