James Baldwin's Film I Am Not Your Negro

The American Dream and the African Negro written by Baldwin, covers looking at the reality of the segregation throughout the south. The majority of the white community thought it almost insane for the black community to act out against the structure of society in any way. In fact, they thought that the black people owed them their lives and should be thankful for what they have. The country that they worked for did not work for them. At times fighting for freedom seemed hopeless because nothing ever changed. But the fight continued in hopes that the lives of their children would be better. Even a Black man who has worked hard to make a somewhat decent life is looked to be below a poor white male or female. If something were to happen to the white community, action would happen immediately to correct it. Everyone on this earth is equal and deserves to live a happy life. In all races there are good and bad people. No race is superior to the other. To think you are superior would no only go against our constitution but God as well.

Baldwin describes the whites as believing the blacks are inferior to them and that the white presumptions of black people have defined the place of blacks in society for many years. He states that “[his nephew was] born into a

When explaining to his nephew how to resist the toxicity and oppression of white Americans, Baldwin states, "You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it" (Baldwin 8). Therefore, the only way to break white Americans free from their prison of ignorance is to love; then they will truly see they were imprisoned the whole time. Concluding the letter, Baldwin says to his nephew, as well as all black Americans, "We cannot be free until they are free" (Baldwin 10). This statement further drives home the point that love is the key to untangle Americans from the quagmire of institutionalized racism.

Baldwin, however, describes his father as being a very black-like “African tribal chieftain” (64) who was proud of his heritage despite the chains it locked upon him. He is shown to be one with good intentions, but one who never achieved the positive outcome intended. His ultimate downfall was his paranoia such that “the disease of his mind allowed the disease of his body to destroy him” (66). Baldwin relates the story of a white teacher with good intentions and his father’s objection to her involvement in their lives because of his lack of trust for any white woman. His father’s paranoia even extended to Baldwin’s white high school friends. These friends, although they could be kind, “would do anything to keep a Negro down” (68), and they believed that the “best thing to do was to have as little to do with them as possible” (68). Thus, Baldwin leaves the reader with the image of his father as an unreasonable man who struggled to blockade white America from his life and the lives of his children to the greatest extent of his power. Baldwin then turns his story to focus on his own experience in the world his father loathed and on his realization that he was very much like his father.

The differences between the world then and now are that there are most definitely more blacks now then there was in the period when Baldwin wrote the essay for starters. Baldwin experience a lot of discrimination since “the first day [he] arrived, and the children shout Neger! Neger! as [he] walk[ed] along the streets. As of today you may not encounter that as common as it was before as the people there probably didn’t see black people as often. The society has been greatly altered since then and the coming to accept the presence of blacks, though there is a few still that don’t. Next there is also the evolution of black history in white lives now as Cole said he I sat down to [eat] lunch at the Römerhof restaurant one afternoon—that day, all the customers and staff were white—the music playing overhead was Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” The world is different from when Baldwin wrote the essay because of the fact blacks then were not allowed the

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In his collection of essays in Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin uses “Fifth Avenue, Uptown” to establish the focus that African Americans no matter where they are positioned would be judged just by the color of their skin. Through his effective use of descriptive word choice, writing style and tone, Baldwin helps the reader visualize his position on the subject. He argues that “Negroes want to be treated like men” (Baldwin, 67).

The tone Baldwin utilizes in his essay directly duplicate the roughness of Black Language, specifically his shorter sentences and blunt statements about the ignorance of Americans. Baldwin concludes his essay with “ it may very well be both the child, and his elder, have concluded that they have nothing whatever to learn from the people of a country [United States] that has managed to learn so little” (47). While usually highlighting the importance of Black English, in this case Baldwin damages the reputation of American values and instead

The Film I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 Documentary that depicts the key events of the 20th Century African American History. This documentary was inspired by James Baldwin’s thirty-page unfinished manuscript. The manuscript was going to be his next project in which he called Remember This House. The manuscript was to be a personal explanation of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, in 1987 James Baldwin passed away leaving the unfinished manuscript to be forgotten, well that is what some thought. Now master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the manuscript James Baldwin never finished. The outcome is a fundamental examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original thoughts and materials to make the project possible. I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of Black Lives Matter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for. Though this is the main thought of the documentary there are many key features that make this film much so about whiteness in American History and now.

“I Am Not Your Negro” displays the adversities that Black Americans face in American society.

Baldwin opens his argument acknowledging the distortion of segregation for the segregationists. According to Baldwin, people who, since birth, have been taught to think a certain way towards the African American race. “The white South African or Mississippi sharecropper or Alabama sheriff has at bottom a system of reality which compels them really to believe when they face the Negro that this

Baldwin says, “The time has come to realize that the interracial drama acted out on the American continent has not only created a new black man, it has created a new white man, too. (Baldwin 449) Baldwin believed that the time has come for Americans to open their eyes to the world around them and learn to embrace the new cultures constantly growing to be apart of what makes up America. As an African-American in the 50s Baldwin especially felt how important it was for there to be and end to the separation of cultures and race in America.

African Americans have to strive extremely hard to be successful and obtain a place in America. When reading Baldwin’s statement it seems much like Martin Luther King Jr. statement: “One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land”(3). African Americans are trying to obtain their place in American society but are restricted to the area that the white Americans set aside for them. Both Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin are striving to make a difference to better America by publicly sharing their emotions.

The text continues with Baldwin warning his nephew about the struggle he is going to endure for just being born black and nothing else. Also telling him that he must survive for his children and his children’s children. He warns him, telling him that this country will set him up for failure and that they will try to control where he could go, what he could do, and how he could do it. He continues to articulate that he must stay true to himself because no matter how much he tries to resemble white people they will never accept him. He later states how corrupt the white mind is, for example, he says, “They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for so many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they

There are some things to what Baldwin said that aren't very accurate. By this I mean that some of the thought he expressed aren't relevant to our society today. This essay was written in the fifty's, a lot of chaos and anarchy was prevalent. This being said, it makes sense that Baldwin wrote: "American white men still nourish the illusion that there is some means of recovering the European innocence, of returning to the state in which black men do not exist…people who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction." (pg 101). The point I'm trying to make is that Baldwin was in a more violent mind state toward American life at this time. The Civil Right Movement slowly started in 1955 then gained speed with Rosa parks and what really sparked the movement came from one speech. Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech in