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Forum » Their America » Literary and Cinematic America » Baltimore Riots (1968 and 2015) and Invisible Man

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Author	Topic: Baltimore Riots (1968 and 2015) and Invisible Man

AdelaideAt-
tard

Novice Their American
Posts: 8

Baltimore Riots (1968 and 2015) and Invisible Man
on: February 3, 2016, 19:03

In Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, at the end of chapter 7, there is a scene in which the white policemen do not do anything about the “obvious anger” of the crowd of black people (Ellison, 160).
This scene features a crowd of African Americans, “[yelling] threateningly” in the city of Harlem (Ellison, 159). The white policemen watched as these African American peoples brawled in the streets, having little to no reaction to their rally. This is brought forth on the second last page of chapter 7, “Even when the shirt sleeve crowd cried out in angry affirmation of some remark of the speaker, [the policemen] paid no attention” (Ellison, 160).
This scene in Invisible Man that focuses on the lack of reaction from the white cops is almost identical to the 2015 Baltimore protests. Although, in Invisible Man, the African American peoples were reacting to something other than multiple deaths of young black people caused by white policemen, the understandably angry reactions of black people and lack of action taken by cops has not changed.
The Baltimore protests lasted almost two weeks. The riots followed the death of Freddie Gray, a 25 year old African American male who “died from injuries sustained during a prolonged ride in a police van while handcuffed and shackled on the floor. He was arrested after catching the eye of a police officer and running away” (TheGuardian). There have been countless incidents in which black males were killed by cops, most of the cops being white. The most well-known, but certainly not the most significant death was Michael Brown’s. Brown was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Brown was unarmed.
The significance of the relationship between white policemen and African American peoples in the scene at the end of chapter 7, is both symbolic as well as an eerie foreshadowing of the present day instances in which multiple black men are murdered by white cops.
There is a well-known picture, taken by a photographer by the name of Patrick Semansky. White police officers create a wall, holding back thousands of African American protestors. This picture holds an uncanny resemblance to any picture found from the 1968 Baltimore riots and protests.

OliBedard

Novice Their American
Posts: 9

Re: Baltimore Riots (1968 and 2015) and Invisible Man
on: April 1, 2016, 16:02

I think what you've identified here is the white supremacist social hierarchy of late capitalist euro-colonial nation-states like the U.S. The common thread between the incidents of that chapter of Invisible Man and the Baltimore Riots is the continued devaluation and dehumanization of black communities. In Invisible Man we see an elderly black couple evicted without concern, their entire lives emptied out into the street, a scene constructed to demonstrate the rank disregard for certain classes of human beings within this social context. The disproportionately high rates of poverty faced by black communities, and higher rates of concentrated poverty, has continued with gusto since the writing of Invisible Man, and scenes like that described are quite common. Similarly, state terrorism targeted toward black communities continues alongside racialized poverty, carried out in the form of violent, increasingly militarized policing. I understand this as part of a larger structure of relational subjectivity in modern nation states—where privileged segments of the population are normalized in relation to Others—racialized others, poor others, queer others, trans others, disabled others, etc. This results directly in dehumanization, and the construction of expendable bodies within this equation of national identity. Ellison was getting to the very heart of this when he explored, in the variable events of the novel, how a human being can be made invisible, something less than human, or a lesser human category. Anti-black racism is one of the most prolific dehumanizing forces in American History, and continues to reify the unjust power structures of today, and Ellison is unpacking it with every one of Invisible Man's experiences and interactions.

note: many of the ideas I employed here come from the critical race theorist Sunera Thobani and her text "Exalted Subjects", as well as from Ta-Nehisi Coates' various writings for the Atlantic, and some Sherene Razack as well, from her essay on the murder of Pamela George

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