Invisible Man Race Quotes

They've tried to dispossess us of our manhood and womanhood! Of our childhood and adolescence – You heard the sister's statistics on our infant mortality rate. Don't you know you're lucky to be uncommonly born? Why, they even tried to dispossess us of our dislike of being dispossessed! And I'll tell you something else – if we don't resist, pretty soon they'll succeed! (15.49)

"Stephen's problem, like ours, was not actually one of creating the uncreated conscience of his race, but of creating the uncreated features of his face. Our task is that of making ourselves individuals. The conscience of a race is the gift of its individuals who see, evaluate, record…We create the race by creating ourselves and then to our great astonishment we will have created something far more important: We will have created a culture. Why waste time creating a conscience for something that doesn't exist? For, you see, blood and skin do not think!" (16.133)

You my brother, mahn. Brothers are the same color; how the hell you call these white men brother? S***, mahn. That's s***! Brothers the same color. We sons of Mama Africa, you done forgot? You black, BLACK! You – Godahm, mahn! …Leave that s***, mahn. They sell you out. That s*** is old-fashioned. They enslave us – you forget that? (17.130)