Prejudice And Racism In Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal

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It’s a common fact that life as an African American is hard. Throughout our history the black race has endured countless prejudice and heartaches. Some of us exceeding expectations of the white community then others falling victim to their simple minded theories and accusations. I will be using the literary work Battle Royal, to help give supportive evidence backing my thesis statement and claims. I feel as a race we are falling behind, not only to Caucasians, (that our forefathers worked so hard to close the gap to) but to all of the other ethnicity groups of the world. I am arguing that we have been foolish and naive believing everything we hear out of fear and that its time for a change. My first claim is that we often betray each other…show more content…
This is why as African Americans, we hate to see each other make it because; it creates a false sense of superiority. For example with education I’m better then you or in other situations. In Battle Royal our narrator wanted to give his speech to a number of important white business man over his community to review how good his speech was. The catch was for him to give his speech he would have to win the battle royal, a blind fight among his friends. Throughout the fight we find our narrator friend getting knocked around until he receives a blow that cause his blindfold to come off then he fights with strategy. He slowly eliminates all the other boys until him and a boy name Tatlock were the last two standing. The narrator pleaded with Tatlock to let him win so that he could give his speech, but Tatlock refuse to let him win because that would give the narrator superiority over him. Tatlock stated, “I will win for me, for them, they will praise for breaking your behind. Needless to know Tatlock won but the narrator still gives the speech.…show more content…
We have to stop betraying each other in the black community, and needless exploiting each other infirmities. We have to help each other reach certain goals in life so that we can build a strong sense of equality in the world today. It’s called the ladder effect. It’s a theory stated that if I make it on top and I hold someone with me and the hold someone with them and further on we all we see the top. So when I step the down the person that once under me is now on top but since we are contacted I’m still on top because I’m living it through that person. My point that I’m trying to get a across is black people as a race we are lost and behind and that we can only help ourselves and with times changing we are getting further behind every

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