Mind You Baldwin By James Baldwin

2200 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial Discrimination in Literature

Violence has such a very negative impact on people as well as communities. Violence has the very power to negatively impact people as well as their identities. Violence can divide families, change people, end lives, and affect lives. The past couple of weeks we spent reading and analyzing these African American passages; a few of these stories had strong instances of violence. Violence is both a mode of expression as well as oppression. No one can understand or even experience the horrible violence African Americans were endured with. Not just with the violence that took place during slavery or even segregation but the modern violence we do face. The violence of police brutality and the fact that the very people who are suppose to protect citizens …show more content…

This bitterness he speaks of is a bitterness that he says had a hand in his father's death. This bitterness comes from the segregation situation as well as the treatment of African Americans in this time period. Baldwin speaks throughout the essay about how he doesn't want to obtain this bitterness. In this essay, Baldwin has a moment where he obtains this bitterness. He and his white friend had gone out to a movie and to get a few drinks after. Mind you Baldwin was in New Jersey which was a new place which had rules that Baldwin was not as accustomed to. When they go to a few restaurants his friend is able to be served because he’s white but Baldwin is unable to be served due to the segregation rules in the town. Baldwin feels some frustration as well as some bitterness towards the treatment as well as white people including his friend. This makes him take off to another restaurant. But while Baldwin was headed to another restaurant so many violent thoughts were rushing through his mind. In this scene from his essay Notes of a Native Son, he starts to think with such violent thoughts as well as …show more content…

I wanted to do something to crush these white faces, which were crushing me” (Baldwin, 593). Baldwin heads to another restaurant and sit down to be served. He informs the waitress of his order and she refuses to serve him and repeats this. Now this doesn't resonate well with Baldwin and puts him in a very dark state of mind changing his character. In this scene from his essay Notes of a Native Son, he understand as well as sense the bitterness that his father obtained. “Somehow with the repetition of that phase, which was already ringing in my head like a thousand bells of a nightmare, I realized that she would never come any closer and that I would have to strike from a distance. There was nothing on the table but an ordinary water mug half full of water, and I picked this up and hurled it with all my strength at her. She ducked and it missed her and shattered against the mirror behind the bar” (Baldwin, 594). He was filled with so much anger as well as hatred and resentment he did something that was out of his character. Even afterwards one of the male white folks in the restaurant grabbed him by the neck and started to kick him. Baldwin kicked him back in the face and ran

Show More
Related

  • James Baldwin's Life in Notes of a Native Son

    1384 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... came as a big shock. After having analyzed his feelings towards race relations in his life, his father’s interpretation of this passage now resembled that of his own. At the start of the essay Baldwin hated his father because his bitterness bothered him but he concludes with the desire to be with his father again. As he evaluates his experiences with racism alongside his feelings from the death of his father, he realizes that his father held correct opinions on white people and his whole life he hated the wrong person. James Baldwin perpetuated hate during his life by directing it at his father and didn’t even notice until he was hated himself; unfortunately, he lost that precious time with his father.

    Read More

  • James Baldwin: Notes Of A Native Son

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the essay Baldwin talks about his fathers hatred or mistrust towards whites such as the story of the white schoolteacher who Baldwin’s stepdad has an immediate mistrust towards. This path is the path Baldwin, throughout his life has rebel against his father against, however as time moved one Baldwin began to feel this fight/hatred that his father experience not because of his father but because of his actual experiences. We can use the story of the restaurant for examples of this as well as an example for Baldwin and his father similarities. In the story you can tell this is a transition of ideas especially for Baldwin and the idea of his father. Before the death of his father Baldwin and his father had different views of the world, where his father saw only the past and nothing of the future, Baldwin saw people, saw change waiting to happen, the niceness of whites not the nastiness his father was keen to. Baldwin declares “I knew about Jim-crow but I had never experienced it” about the restaurant he had been going to for weeks, the racism that he was receiving was never received by him, until his “eyes were open” by the death of his father. This was an unknowingly act from the author that further assimilated him and his fathers

    Read More

  • The Discovery Of What It Means To Be An American By James Baldwin Summary

    727 Words  | 2 Pages

    Baldwin makes people see the flaws in our society by comparing it to Europe. Whether we decide to take it as an example to change to, or follow our American mindset and take this as the biased piece that it is and still claim that we are the best country in the world, disregard his words and continue with our strive for

    Read More

  • Documentary 'Rize' by David LaChapelle

    947 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout, the documentary one can come to the conclusion that most of these African- Americans who live in this area are being judged as violent and bad people. However this is not the case, many of them are just normal people who are try...

    Read More

  • Baldwin's Father in Notes of a Native Son

    1668 Words  | 4 Pages

    Baldwin’s father died a broken and ruined man on July 29th, 1943. This only paralleled the chaos occurring around him at the time, such as the race riots of Detroit and Harlem which Baldwin describes to be as “spoils of injustice, anarchy, discontent, and hatred.” (63) His father was born in New Orleans, the first generation of “free men” in a land where “opportunities, real and fancied, are thicker than anywhere else.” (63) Although free from slavery, African-Americans still faced the hardships of racism and were still oppressed from any opportunities, which is a factor that led Baldwin’s father to going mad and eventually being committed. Baldwin would also later learn how “…white people would do anything to keep a Negro down.” (68) For a preacher, there was little trust and faith his father ...

    Read More

  • Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son

    2257 Words  | 5 Pages

    The key themes of Baldwin’s essay are love, hatred, rage, and anger. These themes quickly transform into recurring strands that Baldwin applies throughout his essay. These ...

    Read More

  • James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    Baldwin's mind seems to be saturated with anger towards his father; there is a cluster of gloomy and heartbreaking memories of his father in his mind. Baldwin confesses that "I could see him, sitting at the window, locked up in his terrors; hating and fearing every living soul including his children who had betrayed him" (223). Baldwin's father felt let down by his children, who wanted to be a part of that white world, which had once rejected him. Baldwin had no hope in his relationship with his father. He barely recalls the pleasurable time he spent with his father and points out, "I had forgotten, in the rage of my growing up, how proud my father had been of me when I was little" (234). The cloud of anger in Baldwin's mind scarcely lets him accept the fact that his father was not always the cold and distant person that he perceived him to be. It is as if Baldwin has for...

    Read More

  • James Baldwin

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a grown black male Baldwin had encompassed a range of experiences, both horrifying and gratuitous. Those occurrences most treacherous were a focal point when he adds that, “It doesn’t matter any longer what you do to me; you can put me in jail, you can kill me. By the time I was 17, you’d done everything that you could do to me” (“The Negro” 2). Reflecting back on “Down at the Cross” for a moment, Baldwin starts by explaining the metamorphosis of both the black girls and boys. Most of his friends became pimps and whores, and the b...

    Read More

  • Learning Racism in Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

    861 Words  | 2 Pages

    James Baldwin, an African American author born in Harlem, was raised by his violent step-father, David. His father was a lay preacher who hated whites and felt that all whites would be judged as they deserve by a vengeful God. Usually, the father's anger was directed toward his son through violence. Baldwin's history, in part, aids him in his insight of racism within the family. He understands that racists are not born, but rather racist attitudes and behaviors are learned in the early stages of childhood. Baldwin's Going to Meet the Man is a perfect example of his capability to analyze the growth of a innocent child to a racist.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Disrespect Of African American Culture

    1333 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before he talked about African-American culture he first talked about French speaking people. Saying, “A Frenchman living in Paris speaks a subtly and crucially different language from that of the man living in Marseilles; neither sounds very much like a man living in Quebec; and they would all have great difficulty in apprehending what the man from Guadeloupe, or Martinique, is saying, to say nothing of the man from Senegal--although the"common" language of all these areas is French.”(Baldwin, paragraph 2). Explaining to readers that even though those people in each place speak French they are separated by their dialect. Making the point that speaking a certain dialect of a language ties you with that culture. Pointing the reader to accept or listen to African American expression of English. By giving this example about dialect, Baldwin wants to express that dialect is a way to separate cultures among people. He then talks about the African American “slang” and how it ties to the

    Read More

  • Baldwin's Writing Style in Notes of a Native Son

    1676 Words  | 4 Pages

    James Baldwin was born in Harlem in a time where his African American decent was enough to put more challenges in front of him than the average (white) American boy faced. His father was a part of the first generation of free black men. He was a bitter, overbearing, paranoid preacher who refused change and hated the white man. Despite of his father, his color, and his lack of education, James Baldwin grew up to be a respected author of essays, plays, and novels. While claiming that he was one of the best writers of the era could be argued either way, it is hard to argue the fact that he was indeed one of the most well-known authors of the time. One of his intriguing skills as a writer is his ability to intertwine narration and analysis in his essays. James Baldwin mixes narration and analysis in his essays so well that coherence is never broken, and the subconscious is so tempted to agree with and relate to what he says, that if you don’t pay close attention, one will find himself agreeing with Baldwin, when he wasn’t even aware Baldwin was making a point. Physical placement of analytical arguments and analytical transitions, frequency and size of analytical arguments, and the language used within the analytical arguments are the keys to Baldwin’s graceful persuasion. Throughout this essay, I will be using Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” for examples. “Notes of a Native Son” is an essay that Baldwin wrote which focuses primarily on his life around the time his father died, which also happens to be the same time his youngest brother was born.

    Read More

  • James Baldwin's Writing Technique

    1762 Words  | 4 Pages

    Baldwin begins his essay by stating that fact that his father died on the July 29, 1943. Right after stating that fact, he mentions the rioting, which occurred in Detroit and in Harlem about a month before the death of his father. Baldwin incorporates the events that are going on around him in his narrative as a way to set up the environment for the reader. The rioting and other events that Baldwin speaks of is his way of explaining, or even rationalizing his feelings during tha...

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Discipline In African American Society

    1241 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine being beaten every time someone makes a mistake. Imagine not being beaten and only later killed for committing one of these mistakes. Imagine loving this individual, too. Now imagine being the one to beat this person for their protection. This is the complex situation of many in the African American community.

    Read More

  • PTSD In African American Culture

    1250 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harriet Tubman once said, I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other. Throughout history the African American culture has constantly been fighting for rights and equality. But in doing so has been denied it. With this happening more and more over the years it seems to have caused them more than just physical pain when violence is added to the equation. It has caused PTSD. The African American community suffers from PTSD due to Racism, what is considered as today’s “lynchings”, and Police Brutality.

    Read More

  • James Baldwin's Stranger in the Village

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...as a reader I must understand that his opinions are supported by his true, raw emotions. These negative feelings shared by all of his ancestors were too strong to just pass by as meaningless emotions. Baldwin created an outlook simply from his honest views on racial issues of his time, and ours. Baldwin?s essay puts the white American to shame simply by stating what he perceived as truth. Baldwin isn?t searching for sympathy by discussing his emotions, nor is he looking for an apology. I feel that he is pointing out the errors in Americans? thinking and probably saying, ?Look at what you people have to live with, if and when you come back to the reality of ?our? world.?

    Read More

More about Mind You Baldwin By James Baldwin

Open Document