Inferiority.

Superiority and inferiority, both feelings that haunt the human race. Feelings that define the meaning of segregation, and our a direct cause for it. 

When trying to understand what was going on in chapter three, I came to read something very ironic. The school boy said: "with his eyes closed he seemed more threatening than with his eyes open" (86). 

STOP

Who?

Mr. Norton

Who said it?

The nameless protagonist. 

Mr. Norton is white. The protagonist was working for him, taking care of him and holding himself responsible for him. Seems reasonable that he felt threatened by him. But why when he was close to him he felt a "a shudder of nameless horror"? (86).  He is "only a man". But a white man. And that makes a complete difference. When the protagonist felt as it were "a white death which had been there all the time and which how now revealed itself in the madness of the Golden Day". 

Seems like the protagonist is scared of Mr. Norton's death holding himself responsible for it. This reveals how dependent the protagonist, who speaks for the african american community, where of whites. To the point that there dead presence creates death itself. A sense of fear, inferiority that itself positions whites as a better race, and gives a reason for segregation. 

Ellison represents this scene to portray how segregation is present even when it does not seem like it. Mr. Norton was dead, but still caused something indescribable to the protagonist. Slavery was over, but segregation was still present. Even today, after the civil rights, we see how men tend to find ways to underestimate others, justifying their superiority.