Racial Bias as a Basis for Discrimination

Race is a prominent social issue due to the fact that people use racial differences as a basis for discrimination. Even some of today's racism can be traced to the colonialism era of the1400s. Once the Europeans colonized Africa and America the white settlers followed the idea that they were superior race and thought that it was their moral obligation to make the “savages” which were the other races more civilized. It was through this notion that they justified their taking of the native’s land and enslaving the people. As for the African American population fast-forwarding some years in history the 19th century included institutionalized racism and legal discrimination for African Americans. Even though they were given the right to vote during this time they were still withheld from the opportunities to do so because of the fact that there were racist groups such as the KKK who threatened them not to share their opinion; the South had Jim Crow laws against the African Americans. Although racism may seem to be something that is quite natural or even inevitable people must realize that it is not. It has been proven that throughout history there have been many instances where people have learned to co-exist in a peaceful manner. For example in the time of the Middle Ages the Europeans admired the ideals and traditions of China and Africa because at that point in time they were considered much more of an advanced culture. In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man he writes to showcase the difficulty of finding an identity and individuality in a color-conscious society.

In order to understand the brutality of a situation in which a person faces racism they must have an experience themselves that involves and racial discrimination...

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...or who made a fool of him when he put him under shock therapy he said it reminded him of a dancing Sambo doll which is a racist doll portraying blacks in a negative light. It is also the same doctor who wanted to castrate him, for no apparent reason, “The purpose of his castration would have been to strip him of his power, his ability to function, his ability to progress, and his ability to be whole (Michio, 4).”

In conclusion, the narrator struggles throughout the entire novel in order to accomplish individuality as well as identity. It seems as though this piece of literature displays his journey to becoming more of a man that is noticeable to others rather than virtually non-existent. Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man was written to depict the hardships that come along with finding an identity and obtaining a sense of individuality in a conscious society.