Racism Consequences In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

Racism’s Consequences
Sonny’s Blues is a story written by James Baldwin who was raised in the same place Sonny and his brother were, Harlem. Sonny, the unnamed narrator’s brother, gets arrested for selling heroin. The narrator, who is a math teacher, spends his day trying to balance and think of what he has to do; he looks at his students and tells himself, “These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities” (Baldwin, 123). While he is on his way back home, he met one of sonny’s friends who felt responsible of what happened with Sonny. The friend tries to defend Sonny by telling the narrator, “when I saw the papers this morning, the first thing I asked myself was if I had anything to do with it. I felt sort of responsible” (125). This makes the brother’s anger grows more; however, he

contacts Sonny after his daughter dies, and their relation gets better.
When Sonny gets out of jail, he lives with his brother’ family after trying to stop taking drugs and using them.

Although the narrator let Sonny lives with them, he suspects that his brother still using drugs; however, he sees Sonny with religious people praying and singing. Because of the narrator’s negative attitude and thoughts, Sonny tries to explain for him how he first gets in charge with drugs and how playing piano makes him feel good, but at the end, he decides to leave the narrator’s home. Eventually, Sonny invites his brother to one of his performances at the club; the narrator accepts and is pleased of Sonny’s playing. He finally understands his brother’s way of communication and expression. The story therefore points out Realistically, there are many families in the world like Sonny’s one that experience the fears of separation, unemployment, and poverty. Because of all the difficulties the Narrator lives, he wants to be unworried as much as possible; he does not want to think of his brother; however, at the end, he forgives Sonny and his

past.
Sonny is one out of millions of black people in United States that enters the jail. According to Maxine Waters, Los Angeles congresswoman, the criminal justice system is racist; she says that the people’s skin color determines whether they are accused and treated well or not. In addition, Jesse Jackson says that the percentage of black prisoners is because of the criminal justice bias; she declares saying, “maintains that blacks are overrepresented in prison populations not because of their criminal activity, but because the justice system holds them to much stricter standards than whites” (par. 2). Because of the bad situations black people live, they have a bad reputation of using drugs, stealing, killing, and kidnapping.
Simply, people cannot judge others depending on their color, religion, and believes. Black people witness bad situations along their lives journey, such as poverty, lack of education, and health insurances. Most of them choose the wrong path to support their families, for instance, selling drugs, stealing cars, and kidnapping. However, people cannot apply that on all black people in US; there are black people like Sony’s brother who study and have a decent job. Bad people are everywhere, either black or white, criminal justice system has to arrest them and makes confess depending on the crime itself, but not on the race.