Racism In Notes Of A Native Son

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).

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

Baldwin and Coates are both teaching their kin that growing up in America is hard. In Baldwin’s letter, Baldwin talks to his nephew about how being born black can hurt you in the world. Baldwin states “You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason” (Baldwin 18). At this time in America, being born black will make your life hard and will place certain restrictions

Baldwin uses the experiences he faced in New Jersey and the personal relationship with his father to show ethos throughout his essay. At one point in his essay, Baldwin finds himself in New Jersey where segregation still exist. “I learned in New Jersey…one was never looked at but was simply at the mercy of the reflexes the color of one’s skin caused in other people” (68). Here Baldwin expresses how circumstances in New Jersey were like at the time, but also portrays the way people were viewed based on the color of their skin. Baldwin later goes on to mention the year he spent in New Jersey, was the year in which “[he] first contracted some dread, chronic disease” (70). This “disease” Baldwin contracted is not an actual disease, but more of a way in which he begins to feel and see the world around him differently. The disease Baldwin is referring to throughout his entire essay is bitterness. Living in New Jersey caused Baldwin to gain the sense of bitterness that his father had lived with during his life. Baldwin’s bitterness comes from the way he was specifically treated in New Jersey and how he allowed that feeling to affect his behaviors. Baldwin specifically mentions the moment in New Jersey where the white waitress approaches him at the restaurant stating, “We don’t serve Negroes here” (71). At this point we begin to see Baldwin as he acts out in violence by stating, “I wanted her to come close enough for me to get her neck

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.

“Notes of a Native Son” is a narrative of Baldwin’s life. It is mainly about his relationship with his father and how after his father passed away he realized how his anger and rage, which was depicted as a disease, was

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.

In Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin, Baldwin uses various stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies such as personification, and metaphors. Baldwin first uses personification in order to describe his father's death. In this, Baldwin state's “Death, however, sat as purposefully at my father's bedside as life stirred within my mother's womb.” Baldwin uses this personification of death in order to show how death consumed his father, becoming a stronger person than his father was during his demise. Furthermore, this can be seen as irony, as while Baldwin's father lay dying, new life was coming about, relating to a larger theme of death leading into new life. Further personification can be seen when Baldwin states that “There is not a Negro alive who does not have rage in his blood.” Through the personification of rage, it can be seen that like death, rage can overpower one’s mentality, creating a strength equal to, or more than that of a human. Baldwin also uses the metaphor of hatred being a chronic disease as it describes how deadly hatred can be, to the point of one's life being filled and ended with rage inside their body. Together, these stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies work together to affect the overall tone and meaning of the work as they display how despair and hatred must be fought in one's heart, for one to achieve acceptance, and equal power. Overall, these stylistic choices affect the audience’s reactions as they are able to identify the tone of

In paragraph 10, Baldwin describes the feeling of rage explicitly. He explains that ?rage? is unavoidable and that one cannot ignore it. The rage of people caught in situations, as Baldwin puts it in the epigraph that frames this essay, causes ?rage? on an everyday basis but still cannot be fully comprehended. The rage of the American Negro can only partially be rationalized by the white people with complications and ?never entirely? subdued by the American Negro. This powerful anger cannot be concealed or disguised because it would become deceitful and invigorate ?rage? and add to its unpleasantness (130-131). Additionally, rage is by far the strongest emotion one can experience, especially if repressed. For instance, Baldwin had a lot of anger and hostility built inside of him because of his troubled past and agitated feelings. These feelings grow inside of Baldwin because he cannot fit into a society that accepts him as an ?exotic rarity? (131), not a human being.

Evidence for this claim can be found in the section where he describes the event that occurred, when he flung all of his rage against the waitress, “I hated her for her white face, and for her great, astounded frightened eyes”(96). I believe the reason Baldwin chose this particular woman over all the others who had told him no was because of the fact that she had “...a note of apology…”(96) in her voice. She may not have been directly racist towards him; she was just doing what was in her job description, but she was being a bystander to Baldwin’s plight, inadvertently or not. This put him over the edge because she acted fear full of him, compelling him to, “...make her fright worthwhile”(96). Baldwin uses the sickness to link all the misery in his life: His father’s bitterness and absence as a figure in his life, to the rage that burns within himself as he is repeatedly rejected service. Throughout the piece, he uses illness to relate to his hatred of Racism in contrast with what he associates Health with: Death. Looking back at the reading, the time between James Baldwin’s father’s funeral and his own contraction of the fury is a peaceful one for him; His father’s death provided him with a moment to reflect on his life up to that point and look on to the future, oblivious to the inhuman treatment that would await him in New

As I began reading James Baldwins passage, "Notes of a Native son", I was immediately filled with emotion. He began his very first sentence by stating that his father had died. I started to imagine to myself, what it would be like if I was Baldwin. I could not imagine what I would do if I lost my father today. He is my hero. I have some previous knowledge of the Harlem riots because I did a project on them when I was a junior, but reading Baldwin's first-hand experience opened my eyes even further. I sympathized most with Baldwin when he said that he hardly ever talked to his father before he died. His father was a mean and scary man. I am so thankful for my dad. He is always there for me and supports me in all that I do. I talk to him every single day and could not imagine it any other way. In 2009, my uncle committed suicide. It wasn’t until after he died that I realized how rarely we actually talked. I regret that almost every day. Death is a painful eye-opener. I really liked the way Baldwin went into detail describing his father and who he truly was. He explained the way his father treated others and why he was the way he was. It was because of that detail, that I was able to empathize and understand why Baldwin resented his father. I would have felt the same way if I would have grown up with a father like his. It was truly disheartening to read about his father's illness. It completely took over his body, mentally and

Racism is a topic that has existed for many years. But where does it come from? Who do we blame? Should we blame television, music, politics or even our own families? All of the above play a role in racism. We aren't born hating each other. As we grow up we are taught to hate each other. Things such as how our family members talk, treat and deal with other races affect us tremendously. This is where the problem begins. Then our hatred grows as we are influenced by the things we see on TV and the things being said about others in the music that we listen to. As we read the papers we read about politicians bad mouthing other races. How about where we live, go to school or even work? Yes, another set of

Baldwin?s father hailed from New Orleans, the heart of the Deep South which could only mean that as a Negro he had experienced Jim Crow first hand. Experiencing seclusion based on ones outward image can have a two pronged effect on a person. Either they disregard the social standards of seclusion or they develop a self conscious hatred for themselves and the system that labels them as a pariah. Baldwin?s father represents an example of the latter and as Baldwin articulates; beautiful had never been a word his father would have used to describe himself (Baldwin 64). His experience of segregation had left him with a bitter image and hatred of himself and American society which Baldwin describes as boundaries due to his self-humiliation (64). These boundaries represent an allegory to the hatred and bitterness that Baldwin?s father felt towards white society. Society had excluded his father, so in recoiling defense he shut himself away in his own world with as little personal relationships as possible. Because Baldwin? father had such a disdain for himself, he felt the same way about his children as they reminded him of his own humiliating existence. This of course brought about a felling of bitterness towards his children as though they had betrayed him by the blackness they shared. The young James Baldwin will grow up under these conditions in the presence of a father who disdains not only his own image but the image