The Fire Next Time By James Baldwin

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.

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

This change in racism is why both authors stress the need to understand the very specific brand of American racism as it changes throughout time. Looking backwards and forwards in time proves to be an integral method of displaying the concerns of history as it pertains to the future.

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

America’s answer for dealing with crime prevention is locking up adult offenders in correctional facilities with little rehabilitation for reentry into society. American response for crime prevention for juvenile’s offenders is the same strategy used against adult offenders taken juvenile offenders miles away from their environment and placed in adult like prisons.

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.

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

Soon, Baldwin would go to high school, a predominately Jewish school, and would become educated. Not long afterwards, Christianity would lose its favor for the young man. Once again the idea of color, and the inferiority of his color especially, were being thrown back in his face. He suddenly was faced with the knowledge that Whites wrote the Bible, and that Blacks were descendants of Ham, who was cursed by God. This Jewish viewpoint suddenly changed Baldwin's view on religion. He realized that his ."..fate had been sealed forever, from the beginning of time"(36). He realized that this was not only what Christiandom believed, but also the way it behaved(36).

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 gives the impression that no white man has ever had to walk a mile in a black man?s shoes. While the Negro was getting shipped to America without a pot to piss in, the white man remained hiding behind beliefs in ?white supremacy? (Baldwin 133). The concept of white supremacy has separated two different races for years. For Americans, whose heritage came from Europe, acceptance of the Negro was not considered due to the ?jeopardy? it could cause among their status as men (Baldwin 133). Baldwin knows his rage must have limitations so he begins to question how this type of ignorance could have evolved. Baldwin tries to associate this stupid form of hate with the Swiss village but cannot because he feels that the villagers remain innocent by their ignorance to anything that does not affect them, in their village, directly.

The anger and amusement that James Baldwin feels throughout his visit to a Swiss village develop into deeper thoughts about the history of African Americans. The unintentional racism that he faced in the small village led to his awareness of how degrading thoughts of non-whites occur in parts of the world outside of the U.S. “Stranger in the Village” ends with the strong statement, “This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.”(8) This essay shows how much history can affect the way people treat other races and other

Jensen (2005), argues how people have a discriminating inclination on how they see history. When history is being used to make an ostentatious gesture of the past, it becomes vital. Jensen, (2005) also refers to the “new White People’s Burden,” (p. 93) as they understand that they are the problem and need to face what reality really means, and act based on that understanding. In essence, Baldwin wanted to help his nephew survive as a black man in America, with a more sympathetic concept of racial tautness.