Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Invisible Men (and Women)



Shylock is one of the most famous examples of racial profiling in literature, only seconded by the tragic Moor, Othello. But stereotyping is a hop, skip and jump away from appropriation and cultural envy is a little like penis envy to the extent that it’s predicated on an inflation of the value of something that’s simply human. If a penis is something you don’t have, you may at one point in life have wanted one. Then you eventually realize the good points of the genitalia you were born with—or undergo SRS (sexual reassignment surgery). Race is more problematic. Sex turns out to be more labile than ethnicity or race, which are harder to (e)rase though this was precisely the survival mechanism described in Louis Begley's Wartime Lies. James Brown famously sang “Say It Loud! I’m Black and I’m Proud.” However, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man suffered from an anonymity that derived from being identified simply by the color of his skin. Cultural hegemons beget epigones. Hitler was an example of this phenomenon since though he was an Aryan, he was an Austrian rather than a pure bred German, if you’re speaking of who’s deserving of the title Reichsfuhrer. Brooks Brothers, the clothing store is predicated on the notion that you can be part of the WASP ruling class by simply dressing in rep ties and button down color shirts (preferably pink on the weekends) and tasseled cordovan loafers or wingtips. A form of conversion that had even more credibility at the time of the movie Gentleman's Agreement (1947), which dealt with "restricted" establishments, occurred when a member of a minority was admitted to an exclusive college like Yale, or club, like the University, Union League or Racquet. 

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