Invisibility vs. Color Blindness

While reading chapter 22 of Invisible Man, a topic that the narrator brings up is the idea of blindness and how Brother Jake is unable to see the narrator and his race clearly. This reminded me of a TED Talk I saw in Gender Studies about color blindness in regards to race and discrimination. The TED Talk focused on the idea of being color blind versus color brave and how both of these play a role in racial discrimination. Color blindness can be defined as where one doesn't think about race or realize that they are inadvertently discrimination against someone based on race. Color braveness, on the contrary, is characterized by understanding that openly seeing one's race to have honest conversations about their experiences is beneficial because it can be used to  create better environments and opportunities for future generations. Even though Ellison is talking about invisibility rather than color blindness (especially because this term hadn't existed back then), reading about Jake's treatment of the narrator and his fake eye made me think of blindness instead of invisibility. In my opinion, invisibility and color blindness differ in how the person is being perceived. Under invisibility, a black person isn't even considered as a whole human, and are instead treated as a commodity rather than as a person. Color blindness, on the other hand, is when one acknowledges a person but unconsciously treats them differently because of their race. 

One instance where I was reminded of color blindness is on page 475 when the narrator explicitly states how Jake is blind and that he doesn't see the narrator. Rather than interpreting this as invisibility, I read it as color blindness and how Jake thinks the narrator is like any other man in the Brotherhood rather than recognizing that the narrator offers a unique voice because he is black. Similarly, I noticed the topic of blindness appear towards the end of the chapter when the narrator asks "Which eye is really the blind one?" (478) When I read this statement, it seemed as if the narrator was commenting on how Jake isn't blind because he lost an eye but because with the one eye he does have, he doesn't use it too acknowledge that the narrator (and other people like him) will have different ideologies and goals. During his interaction with the narrator, Jake refuses to accept that the narrator has a mind of his own and is thinking about what is good for the blacks. Rather, Jake believes that the narrator will just blindly follow whatever the Brotherhood wants him to do since they view themselves as a superior organization. 

Although the topic of color braveness isn't present in the novel since it is a relatively recent idea/movement, I think that it is still a lesson that can be taken from reading novels like Native Son and Invisible Man, especially if reading it in the present. 

While I do think that Ellison continually revisits the idea of invisibility throughout the novel, I think the references to "invisibility" in chapter 22 could also be interpreted as color blindness, especially when considering that Jake acknowledges the narrator as a person but he just doesn't understand that the narrator isn't like him or the other brothers because he has been taught differently (by his grandfather and partially by Emerson) due to his race. That said, I also think that the ideas of invisibility and color blindness go hand in hand because they both center of the basis of racism and discrimination.


Comments

  1. HadiyahSeptember 29, 2019 at 3:11 PM

    I really like that you brought up color blindness, and I agree, I think references to invisibility could be color blindness. I think they especially apply to the Brotherhood because of the fact that they claim to be "post-racial". They claim to look past a person's race, but they do more harm than good because they're not really post-race, but they're closer to color blind. I also believe, like you said at the end, that invisibility and color blindness go together, and I think Brotherhood goes along with both.

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  2. IsabelaOctober 1, 2019 at 12:30 PM

    I agree with your points on how the current definition of "color blindness" can be similar to invisibility. The whole "post racial" aspect of the Brotherhood specifically implies the kind of color blindness you are referencing. However, I think the term deviates because the kind of invisibility the narrator describes, especially through his experiences as Rhinehart, seem to signify the kind of identity that is more or less self imposed. Rhinehart chose to be all of these different people, almost gaming the system of racial stereotyping. While with color blindness, the person's identity in question is entirely determined by the "color blind person". The only reason "color blindness" even exists is to try and combat the racial stereotypes put on minorities by the people in power (white people).

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