Parallel to Native Son, Invisible Man presents racism in even more sickening racism yet Wright’s narrative does so in ever subtler ways. Invisible Man’s society is shifting toward a “post-racial” and “antiracial” mindset. However, these “liberalist” viewpoints only serve to avoid and scorn blatant racist stereotypes and not condemn actual institutional racism. Multiple instances have demonstrated this contradiction. Specifically, since the narrator’s time in the Brotherhood, in a myriad of ways this hidden racism has been shown to reveal itself with due time.
A pair of the red flags at the narrator’s first Brotherhood party also demonstrate this oxymoron of racism persisting through antiracism and post-racialism. The narrator brushes off Emma’s comment that he “should be a little blacker”, completely ignoring how she blatantly suggests the Brotherhood wants him just for the color of his skin, his race (Wright 303). Furthermore, when another brother asks the narrator “How about a spiritual, Brother?”, Jack is enraged by his antiracist principles (Wright 312). This causes that brother to be kicked out of the party. The narrator catches onto this contradiction, wondering “Shouldn’t the short man have the right to make a mistake without his motives being considered consciously or unconsciously malicious?” (Wright 314). Why should there be any consideration of race if they are “post-racial”? It’s due to the simplistic anti-racist facade that the Brotherhood paints themselves as for equality of all races.
Right before the narrator joins the Brotherhood, he encounters the bank in his room at Mary’s. His reacts quickly with anger, “I stopped, feeling hate charging within me, then dashed over and grabbed it, suddenly as enraged by the tolerance or lack or discrimination, or whatever, that allowed Mary to keep such a self-mocking image around, as by the knocking [of the pipes].” (Wright 319). In rage toward the bank and the people knocking the pipes, he accidentally smashes the bank. Just as quickly, he’s overcome with shame and finds that he must conceal the broken pieces so Mary won’t see it. Obviously he can’t leave it in the room because Mary’s “too good of a housekeeper”, so he instead puts it within his briefcase, a symbol of his education and thus his progress. His anger is completely justified, but all he’s done to derail the racism which fueled such racial stereotypes is attack those notions themselves.
On the other hand, he’s not at all drawn toward the thought that the conditions of a white supremacist society play have unjustly forced Mary into a position of financial struggle. When roaches come out of the steam line suddenly and frantically Mary remarks “‘Some folks just live in filth,’” (Wright 326). The steam pipes themselves plus the roaches represent the subtler, amorphous form of institutional racism, which can manifest in things as small as such and in even larger form, such as the narrator’s college life, where he must appeal to the white “trustees of consciousness” for success. Similarly, such conditions don’t faze Mary as shown by her reaction. In all cases, racism is unknowingly hiding in the shadows and thus allowed to thrive and prosper.
The narrator’s speech at the eviction moves toward fighting the unjust white supremacist system which upholds racism, his talent for speechmaking is quickly tamed by the Brotherhood and their “scientific” approach. After the narrator further realizes the unjustness of a society in which an unarmed black man can be shot in broad daylight, he learns of the Brotherhood’s hidden biases in further absurdity. While the narrator sees a chance for real change, Hambro rebutts, “In fact, we now have to slow them down for their own good. It’s a scientific necessity” (Wright 503). They don’t care about the Harlem community, they see them as numbers and the Brotherhood is solely interested in sufficing their own white guilt by breaking down blatant racism in the form of stereotypes. The narrator’s recruitment was all along, just another method of holding back the marginalized Harlem community.
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