'I Am The Invisible Man And Also a Shadow'; See Me
I have survived the pandemic called Coronavirus, holding fast to the mentality and mechanisms by which I have learned to survive in the Black body. But shall I survive the pandemic of American racism?
I WAS BORN Ralph Ellison’s, “Invisible Man.” But I am a shadow.
As Ellison writes, “I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquid—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
“…When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.”
So invisible I am. But I am also a shadow.
I am a shadow, best described by Webster as "a definite area of shade cast upon a surface by a body intercepting the light rays." I am a shadow because it is not me that whites react to untowardly, but the image of me. It is the outer essence of me.
It is this ebony man-shell that conjures fear and hate. Not me the man at heart and soul, but the shadow that is any Black man and every Black man.
Shadows are inconsequential. They are eerie and elusive. Shadows can be menacing and are often disproportionately imposing to the body itself. Light from the right angle in a dark bedroom makes a Teddy bear a grizzly. The fingers posed in just the right way, in the reflection of light, take on the form of shadowy creatures on otherwise nondescript walls.
Shadows make giants of men. Monsters of mortals.
People avoid the shadows. Loathe the shadows. Flee them.
The darker, the bigger, the scarier.
I am a shadow. It is the essence of me. Not all of me. For inside, I too am flesh and blood and soul. My heart beats like every man's. I bleed, breathe and belong like every man. Yet, I know I am not every man. I am a shadow.
‘I Wear The Mask’
I was born in Bigger Thomas’ town with deep roots in the homeland of Kunta Kinte, where Mother Africa still beckons for my soul to return. I am W.E.B. Du Bois’ black two-headed creature: “...An American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
I am innocent blood crying for justice from premature graves.
I am Emmett Till. I am Botham Jean, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald and Trayvon Martin. I am brother to Sandra Bland, Atatiana Jefferson and Breonna Taylor. I am Ahmaud Arbery. I am George Floyd.
And I am haunted by Malcolm X’s words that “America’s greatest crime against the Black man was not slavery or lynching but that he was taught to wear a mask of self-hate and self-doubt.”
I have survived the pandemic called Coronavirus, holding fast to the mentality and mechanisms by which I have learned to survive in this Black body in America, perhaps none more critical than having learned to don the mask. But shall I survive the pandemic of American racism?
I wear Paul Laurence Dunbar’s mask:
Why should the world be over-wise,
In accounting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask
I wear the mask. Not the one that fits over my nose and mouth snugly and held at my ears. But the mask that pretends that I am not who I am. The mask that makes my male blackness less threatening, more palatable. That projects a veiled image of me.
The mask is heavy, almost too hard to bear. It shades my anger, hides my tears. It sometimes makes me the Alone Ranger.
It provides a facade against the daily internal tumult that gnaws at a soul still longing to be free. The virus pricks as I awaken to fill my lungs with the intoxicating breath of a new morning. I can never afford to forget that the Black body—male or female—is always in danger. That we have been deemed American expendable. So I wear the mask.
An Unrelenting Virus
I have learned avoidance from certain social settings. To enter at my own risk. I have learned to tiptoe, to sidestep, backpedal—the art of elusion.
And yet, even in all of my craftiness, the acquisition of upward social mobility, education and a slice of the American dream, I have yet to discover any complete inoculation.
The virus is sinister. Unrelenting. Unmerciful. Unholy. It follows me around inside stores. Shuns me on elevators. It recoils at the sight of my Black body on the street. Stares at me with distrust and disdain.
The virus shackles my hands and feet by mass incarceration that masquerades as criminal justice, and seizes Black bodies and souls like old Jim Crow.
The virus ebbs and flows, sometimes like an imperceptible wind, infiltrating every fabric of American life. The virus sometimes knocks me to my knees. It intrudes. This is my life.
I am invisible. I am also a shadow.
Email: Author@johnwfountain.com
