Examples Of Cultural Invisibility

Ellison’s points about cultural invisibility are still true today, as research indicates that whites often demonstrate a marked lack of attention to minorities – even visual attention (Brown-Iannuzzi et al. 33). This discrimination takes the form of both hyperattention and inattention; whites will often pay the most attention to African-Americans if they perceive them as a threat, or will pay the least attention to them when not focused on issues of crime, drugs or violence (Brown-Iannuzzi et al. 33-34). These findings provide research-based support for Ellison’s broader cultural point that whites want blacks to be invisible – they see them as either the source of a problem or want to pretend they do not exist in the first place. These feelings

However, as seen in Invisible Man, academic and the college experience is beset with its own set of racial codes and challenges. Much of this has to do with the separating of white and black behavior as yet another form of discrimination. Academia, in its touting of typically-white behavior, attitudes and teachings, forces blacks who wish to achieve that education to psychologically separate themselves from other blacks who might not have the same opportunities or desires. This kind of tension is illustrated in the narrator’s constant anxiety about how he is perceived by his white professors and staff. When the narrator spends time with Mr. Norton, a white trustee, he gets wrapped up in the self-hatred of African-Americans that he is acculturated into by societal distaste for black culture. At one point, the narrator thinks about the other black people they had seen in their journey and considers finding ways to separate himself from them in Mr. Norton’s