“Continue on the yam level and life would be sweet — though somewhat yellowish.” – Narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
Colson Whitehead’s Op-Ed in the New York Times was a brilliant critique, both in tone and substance, of the impossible and bitter positions in which African-Americans get put. The pains are many, whether invisible on the lower frequencies or out on the main stage.
There was something liberating in Whitehead’s piece — a sly, Ellisonian fierceness that combined recognition of absurd expectations with a resistance to their logic.
Image: Oliver Munday/New York Times