Oppression In James Baldwin's No Name In The Street

The white world had shut the door on him and he finally conceded the burden of being black. Baldwin affirms, "I had discovered the weight of the white people in the world" (222). Baldwin realized that his father was not trying to pass along his racist beliefs. He was simply trying to save them from the agonizing conduct of the whites towards them. He found the reason behind the bitterness in his father. Baldwin also became aware that the bitterness, which he had once hated in his father, was now a part of him "The bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me" (222). Baldwin did not want live a lonely life; the fear of becoming, what his father once was, dwelled in Baldwin. He realized that he had to free himself of the bitterness, before the bitterness distanced him from his family (like it had, for his father).

Throughout his essay, Baldwin makes numerous use of italicize words or sentences to state a strong fact that he agrees with or deems important to readers. By italicizing that “Negroes want to be treated like men”, Baldwin clearly states his position. The extent, to which he uses this writing technique, signifies that he not only speaks for himself but also for his Community, Harlem. Aside from using italics Baldwin makes use of lengthy sentences, that are sustain with breaks such as hyphens and dashes, and a tone of sarcasm to affirm his position in the matter. He goes into hesitations when writing the lengthy sentences by including the dashes, which suggests that he is not only sustaining his position but also indicating that he has an experienced idea of what he is expressing. Baldwin`s degree of sarcasm in the opening paragraphs, is used to give an idea of how poorly their environment is but more over to show the insignificance that their environment has on others and their lack of attempt to “rehabilitate” it.

The audience sympathizes for Rodney King and the young victims and are angered by the bigotry of the vulgar signs, therefore the mood is suited to support the argument. Baldwin sums everything up by saying, “When you try to stand up and look the world in the face like you had a right to be here, you have attacked the entire power structure of the Western World.”

Baldwin strategically uses the first, second, and third person to strengthen his message and instill a sense of responsibility in his audience. The first instance of this technique occurs when Baldwin uses the first person to recount “[his] first sight of New York” (Baldwin 125). About halfway through this description he transitions into the second person, substituting “you” for “I” and “me” to put his audience into his position of living in a society that “is rich” but in which “none of [it] is for you” (Baldwin 125). In the next two paragraphs he further transitions into the third person to show how this society instills in a person “an absolutely inarticulate and dangerous rage”, which causes them to become “a kind of criminal” because lawbreaking is a necessity in a society whose laws are not designed for your benefit or even your

In the text, Baldwin explains to his nephew how his grandfather was defeated in life because he believed he was what the white world called him and treated him as. Baldwin then recalls emotional memories of holding his little brother when he was a baby, wiping away his tears, and hearing his laughter, to show their love and attachment. Baldwin then proceeds to tell of the damage he saw discrimination and racism do over the years to his brother, saying, “But no one’s hand can wipe away those tears he sheds invisibly today, which one hears in his laughter and in his speech and in his songs” (Baldwin 5). By saying this, and addressing the damage the saw the discriminatory treatment do to a loved one , Baldwin creates an image anyone could relate to, in hopes that African-Americans will begin to be treated as equals.

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

The passage reveals the difficult relationship which Baldwin had with his father. He says “When he died I had been away from home for a little over a year” (222). Baldwin had not been living with his father which caused them to become even more distant from each other. Also, on page 221 he says, “When he was dead I realized that I had hardly ever spoken to him” which shows that the two didn’t like to converse with each other. Baldwin also describes his father as “the most bitter man” and “indescribably cruel” (221). And he uses repetition of the word bitter throughout the essay. His description of his father shows that his father wasn’t a kind father which made their relationship challenging. And also shows that Baldwin had a negative image of his father. This negative image came from the resentment his father held towards people. Furthermore, Baldwin discloses how other family members reacted to his father’s death. He says, “The younger children felt, quite simply, relief that he would not be coming home anymore” (222) this reveals that the father’s death brought liberation for the family. They felt that they had been liberated from the hatred their father had towards whites. They felt

Discrimination has afflicted the American society since its inception in 1776. The inferiority of the African American race – a notion embedded within the mindset of the white populace has difficult to eradicate – despite the efforts of civil rights activists and lawmakers alike. Many individuals are of the opinion that discrimination and racism no longer exist and that these issues have long since been resolved during the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. However such is not the case. Discrimination is a complex issue – one that encompasses many aspects of society. The impact of discrimination of the African American race is addressed from two diverse perspectives in the essays: “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King .

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.

Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain was his first novel, and some would argue that it was his best. Baldwin's

In paragraphs 7 and 8, Baldwin alludes to his hostility towards white people. Baldwin supposes that there is an immense distinction between being the first white person to be seen by black people and to be the first black person to be seen by white people. Baldwin asserts that it is not fair that a white man can come to a new

Throughout the entire essay, Baldwin uses his circumstances to make you feel sympathy towards him as an author. In one part of his works he tells the awful account of his father’s mental illness. When telling the audience what he had went through, at the age of 19, someone reading this, might say that brings them sympathy, while his tone in passages where he explains these sad expressions are unattached. He writes, “…In the morning the telegram came saying he was dead. Then the house was full of relatives, friends, hysteria, and confusion…” Here, he plainly states the facts of how his house was after his father’s death but does not describe how he feels about the people being in his house or the emotional toll his father’s death has taken on him. This is just one aspect of

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.

In “I Am Not Your Negro”, James Baldwin strongly, yet indirectly, displayed that he was an outsider in moving to Paris during the time of the civil rights movement. Although one can argue that James was an exile like Isabel Allende, he, in this instance, relates more to George Orwell in his “Shooting an Elephant” piece because, like Orwell, Baldwin struggled to identify himself being that he was African American during a period of time when America didn't welcome him.