Invisible Black Community

At the end of the book in the last chapter a riot breaks out in Harlem because of the Brotherhood. The narrator goes to see what is happening and he sees that his brotherhood brethren are the cause of the riot. Police come to the scene shooting at the black people for causing the riot. Rocks are being thrown around, shots are being fired, and fights are breaking out. The narrator is being chased by his own people. There is violence within the black community. The black people use each other to get what they want. There are many cases where people are being used. The brotherhood uses the narrator for their plans and the narrator uses a woman for his plans. The brotherhoods plan the whole time was to have the black community turn their backs to each other. The narrator was the cause of the black people fighting each other. His speeches that he made throughout the book were all a plan from the brotherhood to get the riot started. The brotherhood sold out their own people by starting this riot. Why would anyone sell out their own race? Maybe it was money and power? The narrator sees the reason there is racism is because of people like the brotherhood. The white man sees this senseless fighting as primitive and believes that blacks should not be given an identity. He believes black people are just pawns of the white supremacists. The black people are unimportant in the white community. They are invisible to the white people. Back in that time most black people were invisible men through the eyes of the racist whites.

Dancing Dolls

“A grinning doll of orange and black tissue paper with thin flat cardboard disks forming its head and feet and which some mysterious mechanism was causing to move up and down in a loose-jointed, shoulder-shaking, infuriatingly sensuous motion, a dance that was completely detached from the black, mask-like face. It’s no jumping-jack, but what, I thought, seeing the doll throwing itself about with the fierce defiance of someone performing a degrading act in public, dancing as though it received a perverse pleasure from its motions. And beneath the chuckles of the crowd I could hear the swishing of its ruffled paper, while the same out-of-the-corner-of-the-mouth voice continued to spiel.” (Page 326)
The narrator is in Harlem buying some new shoes when he sees a crowd of people. He approaches them and he sees that they are watching a man show of his dancing black dolls. These dolls are stereotypical because they dance in odd ways when the string is pulled. The narrator finds this very degrading and he wants to destroy the dolls. The person that is selling these dolls is a person from the brotherhood named Tod Clifton. The brotherhood’s own people are selling them out. This stereotype really enrages the narrator. He sees one of the dolls in the street but he doesn’t step on it. He picks it up and wonders why his brotherhood friend was doing this. It could probably have been that he wanted money. Would you degrade your own race to make a few extra dollars?

The Brotherhood

“This is advice from a friend who has been watching you closely. Do not go too fast. Keep working for the people but remember that you are one of us and do not forget if you get too big they will cut you down. You are from the South ad you know that this is a white man’s world. So take a friendly advice and go easy so that you can keep on helping the colored people. They do not want you to go too fast and will cut you down if you do. Be smart.” (Invisible Man, Page 289)
The narrator is a member of the Brotherhood. The brotherhood is group of black people fighting against the white oppression. There are also white people in the brotherhood and they also fight against white racism. This quote shows that no matter what white people think they are on top. It says in the quote that it is a white man’s world and that the narrator should be careful as to what he says. This quote is actually a letter to the narrator to be careful or else he will be cut from the brotherhood. This letter is meant to have the narrator be checked upon. They want to control the narrator and his identity. This letter confuses the narrator because he does not know where it’s from. Do you believe this letter is from a white man or a black man?

The Solution to Beauty and Happiness

“I passed on to a window decorated with switches of wiry false hair, ointments guaranteed to produce the miracle of whitening black skin. ‘You too can be truly beautiful,’ a sign proclaimed. ‘Win greater happiness with whiter complexion. Be outstanding in you social set.’ I hurried on, suppressing a savage urge to push my fist through the pane.”(Invisible Man, Page 199)
The narrator is walking around the streets of Harlem because he got bored of reading books and decided to take a stroll. As he was walking he was passing by through many signs and statues. He walks by a beauty shop and sees the sign that talks about whiter skin being the way to happiness and beauty. When reading this the narrator becomes and angry wants to punch the sign and break it. This is an example of white racism saying that white skin is better then colored skin. They are trying to make black people have a whiter complexion with their products. Usually the narrator is a pushover and he would just accept the sign. But after the accident when he lost his memory he felt more free and was mad at the sign. This showed that he wasn’t ashamed to be black. He sees the evils of white society towards black people. The narrator finally sees that he has given up so much on life because of white society. He used to do whatever society told him to do but now he actually has a mind of his own and able to see the racism going on in the world. If you had seen that sign and you were black would you be offended?