Essay on "Racism and Its Effects in Baldwin"

Essay 8 pages (2781 words) Sources: 2 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

There had to be an end to it or some release. In one sense, death and destruction are two forms of release that allow the bad blood to get out.

The tension reached a boiling point for Baldwin when his white friend took him out for a movie and dinner. The movie was called This Land is Mine and Baldwin felt it to be a bitterly ironic title for a film he was about to see because it was painfully obvious to him that the land he lived in was not at all his. This movie set the mood for what happened next: already annoyed by this insensitively title film, he went with his friend to the American Diner -- where, of course, the waiters refused to serve a Negro. So Baldwin and his friend left. But the irony and the bitterness was too much: the madness took over Baldwin's brain and he saw white faces everywhere pounding down on him, keeping him from feeling like he was a welcome and appreciated human being. He wanted only to lash out. He walked and walked, leaving his friend to chase after him. He was in a stupor. He went into a fancy restaurant where he knew he would not be served, but he just wanted to go in and be confronted and lash out at the person who told him no. It turned out to be a meek, frightened female waitress. But this only infuriated Baldwin all the more. He threw a glass pitcher at her but it missed and instead shattered the mirror behind her. Baldwin might have been beaten to death for this gross misconduct, but his friend had caught up and told him to run and meanwhile his friend pointed the angry whites and the police in an opposite direction.

Baldwin at that moment realized the madness that seemed to be killing his father was now trying to kill him. It was taking over. He needed to let go of it and be free of it -- but the question was: how?

This same problem was reflected in both his father in Harlem itself. The madness brought on by the psychological effects of racism was destructive and whoever let it get control destroyed himself. However, what Baldwin realizes is important is the struggle against the disease, even if it seems impossible to win in the end, one has to struggle -- one has to fight against it. He realizes that perhaps this is what his father attempted to do.

As for Harlem, he realizes it too is a reflection of his father and that the same thing eating him up was eating up the whole city. What happened in Harlem to spark the riot in 1943 was the shooting of a Negro by a white police officer. The shooting incident was exaggerated and fictionalized and that fictional account made everyone lose their minds with rage at the injustice of the way that whites were treating blacks.

The incident had its beginnings at a hotel where white officers, Negroes and their girlfriends were a common spectacle and where fights were not scarce. However, this time, it was as though this incident were the straw that broke the camel's back. The crowds and streets of Harlem said no more. They demanded satisfaction: the bad blood had to be let out.

However, the incident had an even deeper beginning, which stemmed from the fact that everyone in Harlem, whether churchgoer or prostitute felt this injustice. This common feeling stemmed from the fact that everyone had a loved one in war, and what they read in the newspapers and the stories they heard from letters from loved ones confirmed this sense of injustice. Jim Crow laws were in full effect in the military and blacks who were not being treated fairly at home were being expected to go and die for their country abroad. Baldwin remembers seeing all the different people of Harlem, the young and the old, the good and the bad, suddenly standing together talking, understanding one another's grief over the poor relations between whites and blacks. This was the real underlying reason for the riot of '43. The shooting incident at the hotel was merely the spark. The inferno had already been prepared.

Thus, when the shooting occurred, it was a manifestation of what Baldwin's father and he himself had been dealing with internally: this rage, this madness. It was suddenly evident and everywhere. It was manifest. It was external -- not just something confined to his own head. He could see it and sense it. It confirmed what he himself had been feeling.

But it was not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. It was a blood-letting, a bad one, but in a sense a necessary one. Baldwin was able to appreciate the scope of the conflict and see the deadly serious ramifications of it. He could see that every individual had to make real choices about whether or not he was going to let this hatred live inside him or if he was going to struggle against it and try to make room for love -- the love that the Lord commanded all to have. Baldwin remembers something his father had preached about regarding serving the Lord -- and this is the note on which Baldwin ends his essay. One serves the Lord by never giving up the struggle against either hate or injustice. It is a delicate balance that one must keep, but a necessary one. And the three examples of the psychological effects of racism that Baldwin gives serve to reinforce the necessity of this struggle. What is at stake is the life of both the man and the city.

In conclusion, Baldwin's importance as a writer stems from his autobiographical essays, which shed great light on the inner struggles of the African-American at a time when America was undergoing a severe crisis of identity. Baldwin captures the inner turmoil of the race relations in Harlem and how the psychological effects of racism can be destructive. He provides three examples of this effect in his essay "Notes of a Native Son." The three examples that he provides are the life of his father, his own experiences growing up under his father's shadow and then later in the workforce in New Jersey, and then the Harlem Riot of 1943. These three examples each reflect one another because at root they are each the same struggle -- the conflict between hatred and love, between right and wrong, between justice and injustice. It is the symptom of a schizophrenic mind, soul and body: the mind is that of Baldwin and his father, the soul is their life and work, and the body is their home and city. Keeping these intact and whole and upright is not easy as the madness that is caused by racism can eat one up. Thus, what Baldwin realizes upon his father's death and the night of the riot is that hatred can only be combated by love and a desire to serve the Lord, however one can. What matters is putting in the effort. The fruits may not always be visible (as Baldwin could not always see them in his father's life), but if one does not make any effort at all, the likelihood of anything ever getting better or of one saving one's life, mind and soul is less than zero.

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. "Notes on a Native Son." Duke University.



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