James Baldwin's Struggles

James Baldwin argues that “such Frustrations, so long endured, is driving many strong, admirable men and women whose only crime is color

James Baldwin is known to be one of the best essay writers in the twentieth century who wrote on a few topics including race, discrimination, sexuality and most of all his personal experiences. In “Notes of a Native Son”, he uses two main strategies to get his point across. First, he likes to tell a story in a narrative view. Following is normally his analysis of the event. He describes the event and then gives his theory on the matter. By doing this, he grants the reader a chance to decipher the meaning. His interpretation may not be what the reader’s is. He likes to argue and provides the basis for his argument in “Notes of a Native Son”. Throughout the essay he talks about himself and his father,

James Baldwin was a prominent African American writer, social critic, and racial justice advocate in the 1960’s and 70’s. In his 1963 Talk to Teachers he aimed to persuade an audience of teachers that education must exist to challenge systems and structures of power and that when it does not, it only serves to reinforce them and amplify their injustice. He specifically focuses on racial hierarchies and white supremacy in the United States. He achieves his persuasive purpose through the strategic use of first, second, and third person pronouns and the use of evocative language, and emphasizes the actionability of his message with anaphora.

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

The idea of relating public and private events in Baldwin’s own experiences is instituted later in the essay in order to transition from narrative to analysis. Baldwin started telling a story about when he lived in New Jersey before the time of his father’s death. He talked about his personal treatment by white people in the south, a first hand account of the racism of that particular era. He learned of the hostility of the Jim Crow Laws inflicted on African Americans during that time period. His story was analogous to nearly all African Americans at that point. When Baldwin lived in New Jersey, he became exposed to the racism of the south that occurred in restaurants and diners. During one of those experiences he wrote, “I

Baldwin determines that violence and racial separatism are not acceptable solutions for achieving “power”. Baldwin believes that black people will only be able to achieve lasting influence in America if they love and accept white people. In contrast, writing 52 years after Baldwin, Coats tells his own son to “struggle” but not

James Baldwin in “Notes of a Native Son” writes about the death of his father and his struggle in America during segregation. He also reveals that he didn’t have a very good relationship with his ill father. Throughout the essay there is a repetition of bitterness. Also, Baldwin’s experiences reveal his purpose for writing the essay. One passage that is especially revealing is on page 222 which says, “When he died I had been away from home for a little over a year. In that year I had had time to become aware of the meaning of all my father’s bitter warnings, had discovered the secret of his proudly pursed lips and rigid carriage: I had discovered the weight of white people in the world. I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now would be for me an awful thing to live with and that the bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me.” This passage reveals how Baldwin’s relationship with his father, and his father’s warnings help demonstrate how hatred can cause negative effects on African Americans.

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.

James Baldwin is looked upon by many as the first of the great Black writers to have had a significant impact on the Civil Rights movement. James Baldwin work was very important to the civil rights movement and he was influenced by the civil rights movement. Born in 1924, Baldwin moved to Paris, France in his early twenties and it was from there that he did most of his important writing (Boyd). Baldwin began his writing career as a novelist and his personal goal was always to attain a status as a respected novelist but it was his contributions as an essayist that provided him with his greatest level of respect. Beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing through the 60s, Baldwin wrote a series of essays that were not only critically acclaimed but were also considered to have significant impact on the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

James Baldwin author of “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” believed that though “white Americans” were adopting bits and pieces of Black English and using it as their own, they would never be able to understand the true meaning behind the language. Baldwin argues that Black English is a Languages and not just a dialect or form of slang, and he believes that because Black English was used as a way for slaves to evolve into their own culture. Baldwin has a very powerful section in his piece that talks about how even if white Americans attempted to look inside themselves and challenge their inner-bias, motives, actions, and character they wouldn’t be able to handle what they were seeing. ““He cannot afford to understand it. This understanding would reveal to him too much about himself, and smash that mirror before which he has been frozen for so long”(264). Baldwin believed that the white Americans will never be able to understand Black English because they will never be able to look inside themselves and challenge their opinions long enough to realize that the problem lies with. James Baldwin also brings up how the lack of Self-Reflection among the adults back then wasn't going to help future generations prosper and build a mutual understanding for each others cultures. “The brutal

Baldwin continues on and says that blacks were being oppressed everywhere. “…Negro girls who set upon a white girl in the subway because…she was stepping on their toes. Indeed she was, all over the nation” (73). Not only does this portray the ever growing tension felt among African Americans in a certain area, it expresses the tension felt across the nation. African Americans everywhere were still continuously looked down upon, causing agitation, which was the current social condition blacks and whites faced.

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.

These two sides of James Baldwin seem contradictory, yet he passionately believed both of them. Baldwin had "a will toward love, peace, and reconciliation in spite of the rage and bitterness that racism inspired" (Foner and Garraty 75). Baldwin was an intelligent man who realized that unless we accept love we are all lost: blacks, whites, everyone. He understood the need for love because he understood what hate had accomplished. Baldwin knew that whites (and blacks) had to examine the fear and hatred that they had inside of them. The key to solving the problem, Baldwin argued, was finding out why the white society had to oppress the blacks throughout history. White society had to examine its own history of oppression and it had to come to grips with it. When the program

James Baldwin greatly outlines the developing issue of racism and oppression in the United States, and his relationship with his father in his essay, Notes of a Native Son. Baldwin’s essay gives reader a glance inside his life, during the early 1940’s. After reading Notes of a Native son, I learned that it is important to completely understand the society which you live in, to appropriately react to certain situations in your life. It wasn’t until the end of the essay that Baldwin began to understand his surroundings and react accordingly. When I was first introduced to racism as a young child, like Baldwin’s father, I instantly developed an uneasy feeling towards Caucasians.