Explain the difference between "social responsibility and social equality" in "Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison.

“Battle Royal” is the first chapter of the acclaimed novel
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The narrator, now a 40 year old
man, looks back at his high school graduation speech that was given to acclaim. This
incident has haunted him for all of his adult life.  

The
narrator is asked to repeat his speech at a meeting of the town’s well-to-do white men.
By the time, the narrator arrives at the meeting, most of the white men have already had
too much to drink.   Extremely nervous, the main character has to go through a night of
“hell” before he actually performs his speech.

Several boys
have been asked to compete in the Battle
Royal. The young men are blindfolded and taken into a large
area in front of the white men.  The narrator and the others  are to eliminate the other
contestants anyway they can.  The last two standing will fight until the other one has
been defeated.  The narrator is one of the last two, but is soundly beaten by a much
larger boy.

The white men have been thoroughly entertained
by making these young black men look like fools.  The narrator’s mouth is bleeding, but
he is still unhappy that he was unable to deliver his speech.  The School Superintendent
remembers the boy and the speech. Despite his bleeding mouth, his name is announced and
he begins to recite his speech.

As the narrator speaks,
many of the men continue to talk.  He is asked to speak up.  They continue to ignore him
as he quotes verbatim large sections of Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition
Address. During the speech, the narrator repeats the phrase “social responsibility”
several times.  However, he
accidentally says “social equality’. 
Then there is silence.  The white men demand that the young man explain
himself. 

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‘Say that slowly,
son!’

‘What, sir?’

‘What you
just said’

‘Social responsibility, sir,’ I
said.

‘You weren’t being smart, were you
boy?’

‘No, sir!’

‘You sure
that about equality was a
mistake?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. I was swallowing
blood.’

Why would the white
men react so strongly to social equality versus social responsibility? What is the
difference?

Social
responsibility implies that men feel obligated to help those in need. 
How would these men assume social
responsibility?

• They would attend church and
  contribute.


• They would contribute to
  charities.


• Their wives would volunteer to help
  others.


• They would give money in isolated
  instances.

That would be their social
obligations. The idea is that if someone has plenty, then he should share what he has
with those who have little.

Social
equality is entirely different. During the 1940s, white society still had
not changed attitudes to accept the black man as an equal. Despite his explanation of
the words being a mistake, somewhere in his subconscious, the narrator meant for these
men to think about social equality.

These white men did not
feel that the black men were equal to them.  A young black man telling this group of
upper class white men that they were socially equal with him or even questioning
equality to imply that there was sameness or likeness between the two races was not
acceptable.

Because of the degradation from
Battle Royal, the white
townspeople see the narrator as an absolute inferior. This sudden hostility reveals the
limitations of Booker T. Washington’s philosophy: the narrator’s blind obedience to the
good slave role does not free him from racism.