Racism In My Dungeon Shook By James Baldwin

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

On the hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation, James Baldwin writes a letter to his nephew regarding identity as a black man in 1960’s America. Using a wide range of rhetorical devices, the writer attempts to convince his vulnerable relative to believe he is forever loved. In “My Dungeon Shook” from The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, the author presents a unique rhetorical strategy which uses comparison and description to reach the main goal of helping the reader focus on the most important points of the writing. The grand design for this section of the novel allows Baldwin to accomplish the purpose by addressing the American citizens in 1963 in order to inform them how black and white people cannot have equal opportunities until the Caucasians recognize their crimes and African-Americans lovingly forgive their previous oppressors.

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.

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

The emancipation proclamation was Abraham Lincoln 's presidential declaration that changed the legal status of slaves from “slave” to “free.” Baldwin’s letter “My dungeon shook” was written in 1963, the hundredth anniversary of the emancipation Proclamation. The significance of the timing of this letter is that he believes that “the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.” With regard to time he is saying that there has not been much black progress, instead this progress has only begun. He believes the emancipation gave the illusion that the African Americans were free, but it did not fulfill the cause of bringing equality about. Instead, this gave white people the ability to ignore or overlook the injustices that the African Americans faced.

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

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.

King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” discusses the topic of segregation and just and unjust laws, whereas Baldwin in his “Notes of a Native Son” places an emphasis on relationships, particularly the relationship between his father and him. Additionally, Baldwin discusses the impact of racism on the lives of African Americans during that time. Although these essays are dated back over fifty years ago; the topics discussed in them are still very common today.

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.

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.

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

In James Baldwin’s essay “Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation” in The Fire Next Time, Baldwin advises his black, adolescent nephew living in the 1960’s during the African-American Civil Rights Movement on what living a free life means based on Baldwin’s own experience as an adult. As an existential thinker, Baldwin attributes a person’s identity to the collection of accomplishments and failures in his or her entire lifetime, as opposed to accepting a person as determinately good or bad. In order to be truly free of oppression, according to Baldwin, African Americans must seek to be authentic by not conceding to the expectations and restrictions of racist white Americans. A person’s authenticity lies in

There have been many cases of social injustice on a number of occasions in the expansive history of the United States. The oppressions of the early movements for women’s suffrage and the relocation and encampment of Native Americans are two of many occurrences. Around the middle of the 20th century, a movement for equality and civil liberties for African Americans among citizens began. In this essay, Notes of a Native son James Baldwin, a black man living in this time, recalls experiences from within the heart of said movement. Baldwin conveys a sense of immediacy throughout his passage by making his writing approachable and estimating an enormous amount of ethos.

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.