James Baldwin’s second half of The Fire Next Time, explains how he felt at fourteen years old growing up in Harlem. He says that he looked around himself, and nothing in his environment really changed, but the only difference was now was how he looked at the other African-Americans in his neighborhood. He felt that he could easily fall into the same life of crime that he had witnessed many black boys around him choose. Baldwin notes that everyone in his neighborhood all came from the same background that he did; instead of turning to crime like many of his community members he instead decided to turn to religion. I interpreted this part of the book as a clear form of resistance on the part of Baldwin. He resisted the trope of the black gangbanger or pimp. While he saw most of the other African-American boys around him succumb to the circumstances of being a black boy in Harlem, he decided to defy it. He went against his father's wishes and stayed in school as a way to separate himself from the rest of his community. The conflict between James and his dad is prevalent throughout this essay. Speaking specifically to religion, at one part in the book Balwin brings a friend home who happens to be Jewish. His father disapproves and slaps him. This physical conflict to me was a representation of the bigger internal conflict that young Baldwin was experiencing during his teen years in Harlem. He tries to find his own identity by resisting the identity that the African-American community feels he should take on. Baldwin feels that African-American boys his age tried to find a “gimmick” that allowed them to deal with their circumstances. He says that he did this by joining a church. He used religion as a way to manage his feelings of being controlled by authority figures in his life, specifically his father. I feel like James thought that being controlled by a higher power was better than being controlled by his father, his community, or white people. While this essay shows Baldwin resistance to many things, it also shows his acceptance of religion and the history that has to lead to his oppression. Similarly to his first essay in the book he calls on black America to accept their history. This is where some people criticize Baldwin because they feel that he is looking down on his own race. A question that I would like to discuss is, do you people feel like critiques of Baldwin are valid?

Baldwin, James, 1924-1987. The Fire Next Time. New York: Dial Press, 1963.

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