Conversation Starters

  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 ectoplasms.  I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, you understand, because people refuse to see me… When they approach me, they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, anything and everything except for me. In this passage from Prologue of Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man , he explores social issues facing Black Americans of that same era and hones in on the futility of the minority class in this country.  They remain largely unseen, uncared for, unworthy of attention from their own community members, let alone the government.  The frustration and building desperation to be valued for their humanity leads members of the minority groups, especially Black Americans, to push through the barrier and demand to be seen, h...