White Supremacies at Its Worst

Romario Ramawad

Professor Bodasingh

FIQWS

27th October 2015

White Supremacies at its Worst

           A white supremacist is someone who believes that the white race is better than all other races and should have control over all other races, a common belief that crept through like an outrageous disease in America for much of the 18th and 19th century during the years of slavery. Even after Lincoln signed the declaration of the emancipation proclamation on January 1,1863 and black slaves were freed, they were still not able to escape oppression from despicable white men. White people continued to show just how full of themselves they were during the Jim Crow era when innocent black men lived in fear of losing their life due to the radical killings and continuous lynching’s by power glutton white men. The Harlem Renaissance came along in the 1920s and gave rise to a strong cultural movement for the blacks and one notable writer, Ralph Ellison, who lived through the transition, uses a young white boys new perspective compared to the elder white mobs old foul, vile perspective about the burning of a black man in the disastrous weather to show the change towards equal treatment of all races in America through his short story "A Party Down at the Square".

           Ellison wastes no time in the beginning to show their supremacy complex by using the white mobs willingness to see this black man suffer through the boy’s description of the horrific weather instead of caring for themselves and trying to get to a safer, stable environment. In the beginning, the boy is being brought to the Square and is told "there is going to be a party down at the Square(Ellison 1) and he notices "he ran with them through the dark and rain"(Ellison 1). Although Ellison names the gathering of all the white folk to burn a man alive a party, the setting of a dark day when the “rain was cold”(Ellison 1) is symbolic of a bad, sad event, not the typical setting of an enjoyable gathering being portrayed by the mob. The boy along with the mob are outside freezing with rain pouring heavily in the Square yet the mob is determined to burn the black man in bad weather. Later, the mob begins to add fuel to the fire raising the intensity of the flames as it "made the Square bright like the it gets when the lights are turned on or when the sun is setting red"(Ellison 2). While the storm worsens, the mob sees the burning of the black man as beautiful as the sun setting showing their twisted perception when dealing with black people to Ellison’s point.

         Things get much crazier when a plane spirals out of control from the skies and crashes into the Square however only causing a dent in the malicious, burning desires of the mob although the boy gets mentally sick. Albeit "the plane had knocked 5 or 6 wires loose, and they were dangling and swinging, and every time they touched they threw off more sparks"(Ellison 3) in the Square, the lack of attention by the mob to not immediately look for objects that may catch fire from the bristling sparks is Ellison’s way of pointing to their intent to destroy instead of preserving their home. The black man is not the only one who burns alive, the planes unexpected crash leaves a woman " as black as the nigger"(Ellison 3) and as "stiff as a board"(Ellison 3) noticed by the young boy who "could smell the flesh burning. The first time I'd ever smelled it. I got up close and it was a woman"(Ellison 3). The Square is bathed in the smell of dead, burned skin but the only ones to feel disgust and show emotion towards the tragedy is the young boy and another woman whereas the rest of the mob’s attention is directed back towards the burning fire, leaving her on the streets disfigured. The mob does not look to find out her name, notify any of her loved ones or care to even clean up the souring stench the dead body left behind as the boy notices the mob “turned around and the crowd was headed back to the nigger”(Ellison3) showing what the mob’s only concerned about, killing but not saving a life.