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.
