The American Color Caste, A Question of Social Equality in Ralph Ellison's “Battle Royal” A caste is the system of dividing society into hereditary classes, such as the one highlighted in Ralph Ellison's short story “Battle Royal”. The protagonist demonstrates the caste system, as he sees it, between the African American race and that of the Caucasians in the story, specifically that of the young protagonist and the older, Caucasian men of power from his hometown. In his story we see the protagonist, a boy of color, subjected to injustices that seem cruel and otherworldly when placed along what is socially acceptable in our societal expectations today. However, in reading Gunnar Myrdal's “Social Equality”, W.E.B. Dubois' “Of Mr. Booker T. …show more content…
It was a triumph for the whole community”(Ellison 423), where the protagonist speaks of the classes mixing as an uncommon occurrence, hinting that the time period in which this is taking place for it to be almost entirely removed from one another. In “Social Equality” we see again the time period calling into question whether or not the two races mixing is even acceptable on the grounds that it might take away their 'purity'. “This theory of color caste centering around the aversion to amalgamation determines, as we have just observed, the white man's rather definite rank order of the various measure of segregation and discrimination against Negroes.” (Myrdal 1091) Determining it to be system put into place purposefully so as to better, in their eyes, protect themselves from what they considered the evils of social equality amongst them. The various measures of segregation and discrimination against Negroes mentioned could even fall under the category of the degrading, inhumane acts carried out upon the protagonist of “Battle Royal” and also account for the room going silent from what had been laughter later on in the story when the protagonist brought up social equality in his speech. (Ellison