TH6 Baldwin

James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time starts with a letter to James from his Uncle James. This section of the book is so powerful and I am looking forward to finishing the rest of the book next week. Even though we only read ten pages for class today, I am amazed at how many sentences or paragraphs that were moving and relevant to our class discussion (it ended up being most of the pages at times). I would like to share a few quotes then delve into my own analysis of their importance and relevance in contemporary day. 
One idea that was reoccurring in this letter from Uncle James was the idea of persevering toward equality in an era where it feels like no one wants you to succeed. He illuminates this idea with the following quotes:  "You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a n*****. I tell you this because I love you, and please don't you ever forget it."(4); "Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear."(8); and "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). These quotes encourage James to continue with his work knowing that the world is against him. 
Uncle James plays into the same idea we have discussed with MLK of not waiting and acting upon the fight now, as it has been going on for centuries:  "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); "This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in face, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the roof of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You're born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. 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. I know your country men do not agree with me about this, and I know them saying, "You exaggerate." They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you."(7-8); and "Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know."(9).  These quotes focus on striving towards rightful justice in the face of evil. It also brings up the same point that we have discussed in class with white moderates. It seems that Uncle James agrees that it is easy for some with privilege to tell the oppressed to wait for freedom, that right now isn't a good time, because they aren't affected by it directly. He also sheds light on the point that white moderates find it difficult to act in the right manner because they know they will face social consequences for doing so.
I look forward to hearing class discussion today and seeing what everyone else makes of this first letter!

Comments

  1. Callie YowlerMay 3, 2019 at 11:22 AM

    I also found this book to be very powerful, and so relevant to the racial tensions in America today. Firstly, the quote you shared about African-American people believing that they can only achieve a position in life that white people allow them to have and how problematic that is, is really powerful. Up until this point we have talked about the issue of racism in the south and how white people contributed to the inequality of black people. But this book gives a really interesting perspective in the way that his uncle is trying to say that African-American people will always be disadvantaged if they only aspire to be what a white society says they can be. Although I would challenge the fact that you believe James' uncle was trying to state that white moderates are the issue. I think he focused more on the black community, and that's why he received criticism.

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