James Baldwin and the Paradoxical Promise to America Discussion

This professor pushes Baldwin’s buttons, aggressively suggesting that Balwin’s defining characteristic of writing about race and religion is somehow flawed. The professor seems to suggest that if Baldwin and other authors disregard race and other differences in their writing (aka just don’t write about those ideas), there would be less conflict in the world.

Baldwin’s response echoes the ideas he puts forth in his essay, “Stranger in the Village;” that this idea of unity simply isn’t the world we are living in. Baldwin passionately explains the disparity he sees in his world as “not the paranoia of [his] own mind, but a real social danger–visible on the face of every cop, every boss, everybody.”

He further explains why he does not offer more white-based opinions in his works: “I don’t know what most white people in this country feel; I can only include what they feel based on the state of their institutions.” Here he is highlighting oppressive legislation that was affecting (and continues to affect) black folks–instances like Jim Crowe laws, segregation, and a general tension between white folks and black folks that dates back to 1619, when the first ship full of slaves arrived in the Jamestown colony. He attempts to justify his reasoning: “I don’t know if the Board of Education hates black people, but I know what the textbooks they give my children to read and the schools that we have to go to.”

reading: http://www.derrickallums.com/learning/wp-content/u…