Class Notes for The Fire Next Time Letter 1

I wanted to say how much I enjoyed class discussion today with breaking down the quotes piece by piece and hearing everyones perspectives as we evaluated Baldwin's words.

Here are a few quotes from the book that we discussed in class! I didn't take my usual in depth notes because conversation jumped around a lot today. If anyone wants to continue our discussion on being innocent, who is innocent, and what traits are deemed innocent, feel free to chat with me in the comments. :)

  1. Baldwin
    1. Fled the US for much of his life to get away from American racism
    2. Written in 1936
      1. Critical year for African-American history
    3. Does Baldwin take a different tact than MLK?
      1. “You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom. One hundred years too soon?
    4. What does Baldwin have to say about the problem of race in America? One for Black people, one for white people?
      1. What is the part of it that has stuck with you?
  2. “You were expected to aspire to excellence: you  were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in you short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry.”
    1. Expected to be average or fit into a box
    2. "You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason."
    3. White america
      1. Losing their identity
    4. The really terrible thing old buddy, is that you must accept them. And i mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with people. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are in fact still trapped in a history that they do not understand. They have had to believe for many years for innumerable reasons that black men are inferior to white men..Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know."(7-8).
      1. To act on is to be committed and to be committed is to be in danger
    5. "I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it."(5).
    6. "Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know."(9)

          1. Acknowledging another person's existence
          2. Cannot hide from racism
            1. Refusing to acknowledge
            2. This is what it is to be black and you have to acknowledge it to survive
            3. If you don't acknowledge the world will overtake you
            4. For white americans, their crime is that they don't have to acknowledge it
            5. The danger of the loss of white identity= loss of white privilege
              1. The investment in whiteness
              2. If you become conscious of it, you will have to be terrified and uncomfortable
          3. Is guilt useful?
            1. Yes you can learn from it but it also creates a barrier
          4. “For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become.”(10)
            1. Problems for white american
              1. Address what is really going on
              2. “We, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.”(10).
            2. Why is it Black america’s job?

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