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Fl Brgi~ Robert Penn Warren and Ralph Ellison i~" ~zaDVADC rcr~ fl BRgi~ VIEWS & REVIEWS Robert Penn Warren and Ralph Ellison A Dialogue this was the difficulty, based upon he has added, "by Negro 'spokesmen' IN Invisible1952, Ralph Man wasEllison's published. novel It our long habit of deception and eva- and by sociologists, black and white." is now a classic of our time, and sion, of depicting what really hap- In other words, he is insisting on the has been translated into seven pened within our areas of American difficult obligation of discovering languages. The title has become a life, and putting down with honesty and affirming the self, in the face of key phrase: the invisible man is the and without bowing to ideological pressures from whatever source or American Negro. expediencies the attitudes and values side. He has notably succeeded in Ralph Ellison is not invisible, and which give Negro American life its fulfilling that obligation. he had done some thirty-eight years sense of wholeness and which render Physically, Ralph Ellison is a man of living before the novel appeared; it bearable and human and, when of force and grace, somewhat above the rich and complex experience of measured by our own times, desir- medium height, with a well-fleshed those years underlies, too, his recent able." figure not yet showing any of the collection of essays, Shadow and Act. We all know the difficulty of being slackness of middle age. He is light In the preface he says of his struggle honest about our feelings. But Elli- brown. His brow slopes back but to become a writer: son clearly means something more is finely vaulted, an effect accentu- "I found the greatest difficulty for than that ordinary human difficulty ated by the receding hairline. The a Negro writer was the problem of -the difficulty of hitting the truth skin of his face is unmarked by his revealing what he truly felt, rather beyond what Negroes, as Negroes, fifty years, and the whole effect of than serving up what Negroes are "supposed to feel," are "en- his smoothly modeled face is one of were supposed to feel and were couraged to feel." By whom? By the calmness and control; his gestures encouraged to feel. And linked to white world, of course-but also, as have the same control, the same bal- 8 1965 by Robert Penn Warren. From "Who Speaks for the Negro?", to be published by Random House. THE REPORTER . R.. : .. te r :- 1 .. -7. .. _ --7.fi..,., y.r.R- ... .,II* -- IC ___ ance and calmness. The calmness absence of outside pressure. On the Actually, I doubt the existence of has a history, I should imagine, a aesthetic level alone there are cer- a "total" agony, for where person- history of self-conquest and the hard tain types you like, certain sensibil- ality is involved two plus two seldom lessons of sympathy learned through ities, certain voices-a number of equals four. But I agree that agony a burgeoning and forgiving imag- other qualities. Another factor is and alienation do form a valid ination. Lurking in the calmness is, that Negroes, despite what some of source of appeal. too, the impression of the possibility our spokesmen say, do not dislike However, there's another aspect of of a sudden nervous striking out, being Negro-no matter how in- reality which applies: the American not totally mastered. There are those convenient it frequently is. I like Negro has a dual identity, just as moments when he seems to with- being a Negro. most Americans have, and it seems to draw; but the withdrawal is tempered WARREN: Then it's not merely me ironic that the discipline out of by the flashes of sympathy and by suffering and deprivation, it's a chal- which this present action is being ex- humor, a wry humor sometimes lenge and enrichment? erted comes from no simple agony- directed at the self. ELLISON: Yes indeed-these com- or simple despair-but out of long He speaks slowly, not quite in a plete the circle and make it human. years of learning how to live under drawl, and when he speaks on a mat- And as I was telling the kids this pressure, of learning to deal with ter of some weight he tends to move morning at Rutgers, I have no desire provocation and with violence. It his head almost imperceptibly from to escape the struggle, because I'm issues out of the Negro's necessity side to side, or even moves his just too interested in how it's going of establishing his own value system shoulders. He does this as he sits to work out. I want to help shape and his own conception of Negro on a couch in his New York study events and our general culture, not experience and Negro personality, high above the Hudson. I have just merely as a semi-outsider but as one conceptions which seldom get into read a quotation from W. E. B. Du who is in a position to have a re- the sociology and psychology text- Bois, the eminent Negro historian, sponsible impact upon the American books. on what he regarded as the split in value system. WARREN: The power of character, the psyche of the Negro American, WARREN: Some Negroes-some of self-control-the qualities that are the tension between the western leaders-say that there is no chal- making this movement effective now white cultural tradition and "Negro- lenge or enrichment in the situation -did not come out of blind suffer- ness" as racial and cultural identity. of Negroes. Of course, for them it ing? may be a matter of strategy to insist EI.I.rSON: Nor did they come out ELLISON: The idea that the Negro on the total agony. of self-pity or self-hate-which is a psyche is split is not as viable as it EL.LISON: Perhaps I can talk this belief shared by many black and seems-although it might have been way because I'm not a leader. But white sociologists, journalists, by the true of Dr. Du Bois personally. My there is a dlanger in this, neverthe- Black Muslims and by many white problem is not whether I will accept less. The danger lies in overempha- liberals. But even though some of or reject American values. It is, sizing the extent to which Negroes these elements-the Negro being hu- rather, how can I get into a position are alienated, and in overstressing man-are present within the move- where I can have the maximum in- ment, these qualities are no expres- fluence upon those values. There is sion of blind suffering or self-hate. also the matter, as you have pointed For when the world was not looking, out, of those American ideals which when the country was not looking at were so fatefully put down on paper Negroes, and when we were re- which I want to see made manifest. the extent to which the racial pre- strained in certain of our activities WARREN: One sometimes encoun- dicament imposes an agony upon by the interpretation of the law of ters the Negro who says he regrets the individual. For the Negro youth the land, something was present in the possible long-range absorption this emphasis can become an excuse our lives to sustain us. This is evi- of the Negro blood, and the possi- and a blinder, leading to an avoid- dent when we go back and look at bility of the loss of Negro identity. ance of individual assertion. It can our cultural expression, when we ELLISON: That's like wishing your encourage him to ignore his person- look at the folklore in a truly ques- father's father wasn't your grand- al talent in favor of reducing him- tioning way, when we scrutinize and father. I don't fear "Negro" blood self to a generalized definition of listen before passing judgment. Lis- being absorbed, but I am afraid that alienation and agony. Thus is accom- ten to those tales which are told by the Negro American cultural ex- plished what the entire history of Negroes among themselves. I'm an- pression might be absorbed and repression and brutalization has noyed whenever I come across a per- obliterated through lack of appre- failed to do: the individual reduces fectly well-meaning person saying of ciation and through commercializa- himself to a cipher. Ironically, some the present struggle, "Well, the tion and banalization. of those who yell loudest about Negro has suddenly discovered cour- Anyway, I don't think the prob- alienation are doing jt in some of age." Without ever bothering to do lem of blood absorption works so the most conservativ journals and more than project his own notions simply. There are principles of newspapers and are very well paid upon Negroes-and not really his selection which have little to do with for so yelling. Yet, obviously, the own but prefabricated stereotypes- the status accorded to whiteness, and agony which they display has other he makes of a slow and arduous de- these assert themselves despite the than racial sources. velopment a dramatic event. The March 25, 1965 freedom movement, he assumes, ex- feel the need to defend a lot of ported by just one thing--segrega- ists simply because he is looking at things in one package as being South- tion. it. Thus it becomes an accident or ern, and one of those things is seg- ELLISON: Yes, and their fear is so an artistic contrivance, or a con- regation.
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