James Baldwin, throughout the essay, expresses the anger or "rage" that he feels because of white supremacy. During this time period, in Switzerland, blacks were considering "exotic rarities", and when seen were treated as if they weren't human. Baldwin talks about how the children and sometimes even adults would touch his hair just because it was a different texture and wasn't seen everyday. I feel that Baldwin's intent for writing this essay is to express his feelings and beliefs about the way whites once treated blacks. In paragraph 25 of the essay Baldwin tells us that, "This worlds white no longer, and it will never be white again." Black men are no longer considered rarities and are finally accepted into society, as human beings. Baldwin talks about the rage he feels sometimes of the way he is treated."There is a dreadful abyss between the streets of this village and the streets of the city in which I was born, between the children who shout Neger! today and those who shouted Nigger! yesterday—the abyss is experience, the American experience." I feel this is a very important excerpt because It expresses the difference between the way blacks are treated in America verses, in this case, Switzerland. Baldwin's main intent is to express this difference and also talk about how blacks should be treated equally.
These are just a few of the main ideas that I got from reading this essay. I think I will try to read it again sometime this week to really capture the meaning of it. Wish I could have been in class to discuss Baldwin's intent, and what others took from the reading.
3 comments:
I agree about him expressing his anger. However, how about his point that America has now forever changed, making it impossible for the white Americans to live in a society with no blacks?
I know, you said the thing about how 'blacks should be treated equally', but I feel there's more to it that just equal treatment.
I agree with you. I think that he is trying to say that blacks are human beings too, and we should not treat them any differently. I also believe that paragraph 14 is very important because it compares the difference in treatment of blacks by Europeans and Americans.
Excellent posting, Tyler, and it displays a more thorough reading of the text, despite your missing class. Baldwin's points seem to be pretty complicated; it seems as if he is trying to get at what the general understanding of being African-American is, both in different places and to himself: everyone, it seems, has a different idea of what it means to be black. Good job. Maybe you could write your college essay about what it has meant to you to be Asian. Just kidding.
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