Sick of Spring Break

Ugh.  I spent the last week of Spring Break sick in bed.  Chloe scarcely recognized her poor mother picking her up from school without her face and hair done.  It was a sweatpants, Uggs, and messy (ok. ratchet) ponytail kind of week.

Anyway, I got this really sweet note from a former student that cheered me up and made me look forward to the week ahead back at school.
  
Hi Ms. Cardwell! 
I hope you're doing well. I'm back at Mount Holyoke and in one of my classes we're reading The Bluest Eye. I told my professor that I'd read it before in middle school and he actually didn't believe me at first. This isn't the first time a teacher has been surprised at the books you assigned us; in high school I had to read Invisible Man for a class and the teacher was surprised that I had read it at The Storefront. Just so you know, I'm actually really glad you made us read those books. Even though I didn't appreciate it very much at the time, it is easier reading these books the second time around because the discussions we had at The Storefront start to come back to me.

-H.

Invisible Man by Elizabeth Catlett Riverside Park @ 150th.

If I Had a Son His Name Would Be Ellison

Ralph Ellison, by Jenny K.

Surveying my bookshelf and getting down my copy of Invisible Man from 11th or 12th grade (the 90's were boom time for diversity in private schools) I was flooded with memories of characters and scenes from the novel: The Prologue, Battle Royal, The Vet, Dr. Bledsoe, The Optic White Paint Factory, Tod Clifton, Ras the Destroyer . . . When I taught 7th and 8th grade I would teach The Battle Royal scene as a short story and students would beg to read the rest of the book! Imagine that; middle-school students begging to read a 581 page book!  That's how powerful Invisible Man is, and I feel a special affinity for anyone who has read and enjoyed it.

Roman Lawson reciting The Prologue from Invisible Man better than any trained actor could have!

In my opinion, Invisible Man is the best novel ever written and should be required reading for all Americans. What has surprised me most about working at my new school is how deep and wide the gap is between blacks and whites in America (sometimes I feel like a canary in a coal mine).  If the continued realities of segregation prevent Americans from getting to know each other across color lines, literature can be a conduit for understanding.

"Invisible Man," by Jeff Wall

However, Invisible Man is not just a window into the black psyche for white Americans, as Toni Morrison has implied (Morrison said that she knew that Invisible Man wasn't written for "us" because black men were not invisible to her).  I have to respectfully disagree with Ms. Morrison (gasp!) and argue that Invisible Man, first published in 1952, was a novel ahead of its time. It was written precisely for those of "us" who were heading North and entering an integrated world without a roadmap.  Consider this quote:

 

"The Invisible Man," by Gordon Parks

“Son, after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit you or bust wide open.”

 

How I Feel at Work Half the Time

At the beginning of my teaching career, I was given the dubious advice that I should be "the spook who sat by the door."  The subtext of that comment was that if I was to survive in the world of education I should just "sit down and be quiet."  However, I didn't want to be anyone's spook; I wanted to be a shape-shifter like the narrator of Invisible Man.  I wanted to use people's inability to see me to my advantage, to "play the game, but [not] believe in it."  The power of Invisible Man is that it features black characters who are doing more than just reacting to white racism; they are thinking, evolving human beings who remake the world as they define and refine themselves.

If you haven't read Invisible Man, it is definitely worth the effort -but save it for when you have time to really grapple with it.  You can also listen to the audiobook masterfully read by Olivia Pope's Daddy, Joe Morton.

The Invisible Men

A person that I dated (who shall remain nameless) once dismissively told me that I viewed the world through the fantasy world of literature.  He was right.  I do interpret the world through the prism of literature, but not because it's fantasy.  In my mind, literature represents the highest reflection of our reality as human beings.  There is no greater expression of this than the words of Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man.  I taught Invisible Man for several years to 7th and 8th graders at The Children's Storefront School in Harlem.  At first it was hard for many of my students to make a connection to the novel because, according to them, it was about "back in the days of slavery," or "back in the days of segregation" (the latter statement being highly ironic because the school where I taught was 99% Black).  

This book should be required reading for all Americans

As I look at images from across the country, I am reminded of how relevant Ellison's novel is today.  It is a shame that a book that was written in 1952 continues to reflect the racism and rage that is part of our current reality as Americans.  The connection between Ellison's words and the images coming out of Ferguson, Missouri cannot be denied.  If you look closely, you will see that Fact and Fiction are one in the same. 

"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me."

Photo: New York Post

"Then too, you're constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back."

Photo: St. Louis Post Dispatch

"Beware of those who speak of the spiral of history; they are preparing a boomerang. Keep a steel helmet handy."

Photo: USA Today

"I don't know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers." 

Photo: St. Louis Post Dispatch