What is the Narrator Trying to Tell us in "Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison?

Part of the message, as
I take it, is that the boys in the fight are desperate and terrified. Their relationship to the
society they live in is, essentially, one of abuse. 

These boys are so needy
that they agree to this crazy fight, where they hurt one another and humiliate
themselves.

They seek approval from the people who humiliate them. There is a
sickness at the bottom of the message, in my view.

"" presents a startling scene of violence, naivet© and economic
powera scene that implies the philosophical depth behind the institutions of racism and the
pathos of asserting an identity in the shadow of historical .