"What's up with the title???"

“But you were concerned with that old couple,” he said with narrowed eyes. “Are they relatives of yours?”
“Sure, we’re both black,” I said, beginning to laugh.
He smiled, his eyes intense upon my face.
“Seriously, are they your relatives?”
“Sure, we were burned in the same oven,” I said.
The effect was electric. “Why do you fellows always talk in terms of race!” he snapped, his eyes blazing.
“What other terms do you know?” I said, puzzled. “You think I would have been around there if they had been white?”


This is a conversation from Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man - and the source of this blog’s title. The narrator has just delivered a speech that prompted a mini-riot between black people and three men attempting to evict an older black couple. He is now in a coffee shop with a mysterious Jewish man, who attempts to recruit the narrator to work as an activist.

The conversation interests me as an example of the powers of racial identity in our lives. Over the past year, I’ve had a ton of conversations about race and racism, many focusing on the nature of the concept. What is race? What is “blackness”? How significant is a person’s race in determining various aspects of their life?

I’ve been reading this book off and on for a while, and I have not finished it. I must say, though, that I agree with the Jewish man. I understand that black people, specifically black Americans, often share aspects of culture and experience. I also recognize the power of unity and the idea of strength in numbers as a means of affecting change. At the same time, I feel that it is key to recognize the unity- and diversity- of ALL people, regardless of skin color – not to sound too much like Dr. King.

We have to understand that many ideas related to race are pretty dumb. We’re all humans, point blank. A few weeks ago, I was exposed to the idea of the word “race” as a verb, meaning to categorize or identify a person as belonging to a specific racial group. Historically, race has existed in large part as a tool of oppression, using physical characteristics to easily identify who does and does not deserve certain rights and privileges. Unity within a race is thus effective as a tool to combat this oppression, but it is equally if not more important to build bridges across racial boundaries to combat oppression based on other categorizations of people (class, age, education, etc.).

The idea that “we were burned in the same oven” is awesome to me. It would be even better had the narrator considered the fact that the oven is indicative not only of a black experience, but a human experience. In large part, that idea is why this blog exists – to allow us to discuss our diverse human experiences, thoughts, feelings, etc. Lots of us get burned; some just a little blackened (no pun intended); others escape perfectly golden-brown (again, no pun. Maybe I should have used a different metaphor.) I believe that the recognition of this is one of the first and most important steps in the eradication of racism.





I just wish I weren’t so pessimistic about it actually happening.*



* While I watched MTV for a second this morning, I saw rapper The Game discussing his new video. At the end, he said something along the lines of “I’ve decided to accept responsibility for the actions of my people. And by my people, I don’t mean black people. I mean the human race.” Even though I feel like Game is an idiot who chases controversy for record sales to make up for his mediocre talent, he appears insightful with this statement. Maybe this is a good sign.

**For whatever reason, I couldn't figure out how to indent on this post. Sorry.