socialist minister Francis Bellamy wrote the "Pledge of Allegiance" in 1892, he posited that America was a utopian meritocracy, “...with liberty and justice for all.” President Ronald Reagan once called our nation a "shining city on a hill." And they, too, were also correct! So which America is it? The answer is ... all of the above! Has America changed since its founding? Absolutely! But, on issues of racial equality and equitable treatment of all her citizens, the concept of making the necessary changes to achieve these goals has morphed from moving with "all deliberate speed" to crawling along at glacial pace in the view of those who are deleteriously impacted. As such, until the promise of liberty is extended to each and every citizen, without regard to race, creed, national origin or orientation, this land will never truly be free, and I will always be for sale. "In God I trust... All others pay cash!"
Kindest Regards
Lady Justice
(A drawing of Lady Justice: "The Personification of Fairness")
Will It Ever End?
Throughout the history of America, the United Sates has gone to great lengths to marginalize men of African descent, from the moment enslaved men and women of color were forced ashore onto the banks of Hampton, Virginia in 1619, until today; where black men represent one-third of America's prison population, according to John Gramlich of the Pew Research Center. In his article, "The Gap Between Blacks and Whites in Prison Is Shrinking," the author points out the fact that even though the chasm that existed between the inordinate number of blacks that were incarcerated versus their white counterparts in crime has decreased over the years, African Americans are still overrepresented in the prison population, illustrating a system of jurisprudence tilted towards partiality. In his analysis of the racial dynamics that color the criminal justice system, Gramlich noted the following: "The racial and ethnic makeup of U.S. prisons continues to look substantially different from the demographics of the country as a whole. In 2017, Blacks represented 12% of the U.S. adult population but 33% of the sentenced prison population. whites accounted for 64% of adults but 30% of prisoners. And while Hispanics represented 16% of the adult population, they accounted for 23% of inmates." If America is to ever realize her full and utmost potential, she must first begin by understanding that criminalizing individual existence has never been the answer. When given the opportunity to excel and succeed in every aspect of American life, Blacks have demonstrated time and again that capacity, character and commitment are universal abilities that transcend racial politics.
On April 16, 1952, two days after the release of what would be Ralph Ellison's only novel, New York Times writer Orville Prescott set the example for other white journalists to follow when he publicly acknowledged that Ellison's brilliance could not be ignored, when he declared "Invisible Man" to be "the most impressive work of fiction by an American Negro which I have ever read." (Prescott). In a country already fraught with racial strife, with the recent murders of Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriett, who became the first martyrs of the civil rights movement when they were killed by a bomb placed underneath the floorboards of their bed on Christmas Eve, some four months earlier, Ellison's novel and, indeed, the world's response, was the beginning of a running dialogue on what it means to be a black male in America. "Invisible Man," Prescott wrote, "is undoubtedly melodramatic; but each melodramatic incident represents some aspect of the Negro's plight in America, or of his response to it."
But just as important as it is to recognize the literary genius Ellison exhibits in his work, we must also be mindful of the struggle the book's narrator and protagonist continued to encounter in every aspect of his life, all of which led to his feelings of hopeless invisibility. Today, Black males in America continue to face some of the same challenges that the "Invisible Man" faced in his own life, as a college educated man who continually finds himself in situations that reinforce his own societal limitations. They, too, feel trapped in a skin that, at once, renders them as someone to be watched warily, simultaneously forgotten and increasingly inconsequential.
In the nearly seven decades that have passed since the publishing of Ellison's work, "Invisible Man" has shined a light on the effects of systemic racism in America. For example, a recurring theme of the book centers around the narrator's need to fit into his environment and, in doing so, becomes an inauthentic version of himself. Today, this same narrative continues to play out in the lives of African American men everywhere, as they live sicker and die quicker than any other group in America, all while struggling to be seen in a nation that pretends that they aren't there. In his article, "American Nightmare: Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" At 60," journalist Nathaniel Rich of the Daily Beast reminds us that this iconic novel not only broke barriers in literature, it also went a long way towards helping to expose the harsh realities of racial discrimination in the country. In his insightful analysis of the book's impact since its initial publication, Rich observed: "In Invisible Man we experience American history as a nightmare. Sixty years after the novel’s publication we still haven’t woken up." On this singular point, history and time, have agreed. Perhaps the most insightful synopsis of "Invisible Man" comes from Ralph Ellison himself, who described the nameless protagonist at the heart of this novel, as "a depiction of a certain type of Negro humanity that operates in the vacuum created by white America in its failure to see Negroes as human.” ("American Nightmare"). And even in the age of a "post-racial America," black males are still asking the fundamental question: "will they ever see us?"
In their Op-Ed piece entitled, "Forcing Black Men Out of Society," the New York Times Editorial Board, led by Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal, spoke with one clarion voice about the need to address the systemic exclusion of black men in many aspects of American society. "An analysis—"1.5 Million Missing Black Men”— showed that more than one in every six black men in the 24-to-54 age group has disappeared from civic life, mainly because they died young or are locked away in prison," the times noted (Rosenthal). “While the 1.5 million number is startling, it actually understates the severity of the crisis that has befallen African-American men since the collapse of the manufacturing and industrial centers, which was quickly followed by the “war on drugs” and mass imprisonment, which drove up the national prison population more than sevenfold beginning in the 1970s,” the editorial board continued, noting the dismal statistics that are oftentimes attendant with being Black in America (Rosenthal). Unless and until we reverse these declines and bring our missing men back into the fabric of our nation as productive members of society, nothing will ever change.
The aforementioned New York Times report went on to note that systemic racism, poverty, crime and lack of opportunity have all colluded together to effectively stymie the ability of black males in America to beat the odds stacked against them. “In addition to the “missing,” millions more are shut out of society, or are functionally missing, because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers, racial discrimination or sanctions that prevent millions who have criminal convictions from getting all kinds of jobs. At the same time, the surge in imprisonment has further stigmatized blackness itself, so that Black men and boys who have never been near a jail now have to fight the presumption of criminality in many aspects of day-to-day life..." (Rosenthal). Be that as it may, in spite of the fact that the majority of Americans know and fully understand the impacts that systematic exclusion can have on any group of people, many still refuse to even address these intractable issues, preferring instead to pretend they don't exist, and simply hope that they will go away. Then, in 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States and everything changed.
Here We Go Again?
In quoting novelist Jesmyn Ward, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction, Conrad Pritscher, in his book "Skin Color: The