2) Next, compose a thoughtful blog post using evidence from the text and anything from the documentary I am Not Your Negro (2017) in an attempt to explore one of the complex issues Baldwin examined in his discussion of race in America. As stated before, be okay with feeling uncomfortable. Ask questions. Look for feedback. Practice kindness. We can discuss these matters with passion AND civility.
Because the story was written by James Baldwin, I assumed the narrator to be black. I was shocked when he remarked, “Goddam the N*****. The black stinking coons. You’d think they'd learn. Wouldn't you think they'd learn? I mean wouldn't you?” I was appalled by this language. I simply couldn't understand why people would think like this. Of course, I knew they did, but there is something dirtier when you are in the brain of someone who sees the world like that. There are no excuses to be made for them, they weren't peer pressured or anything, these were really their thoughts. You want to be able to relate to a narrator, as I mentioned in class about music: it lets someone else think for you. In this story you most definitely cannot let Jesse think for you. Maybe part of the problem was that Jesse let his father think for him, then again, this is what parents are for. I felt queasy while reading the gruesome burning scene but something even uglier followed. Jessie thought, “At that moment Jesse loved his father more than he had ever loved him.” Baldwin reveals brutal horrors but somehow this is tragic part, that this will not be the end. Jesse looks up to his father in what is undeniable evil, but somehow we are unable to blame him, he is just a kid. Funny how goodness is so subjective. The narrator refers to himself: “And he was a good, God-fearing man, he had tried to do his duty all his life, and he had been a deputy sheriff for several years.” He uses his religion as a virtue. I hear that a lot today, using Christianity to justify some questionable actions. It's a good defense, it can't be confirmed or denied. In modern America and certainly when James Baldwin wrote, there was systematic racism which hindered attempts by African Americans to move up economically. The narrator thinks, “... they still lived like animals. Their house were dark, with oilcloth or cardboard in the windows…” I wonder if Baldwin intended for the irony of a white racist saying that. Do you think treating black people as subhuman helps them thrive in a capitalist society? Baldwin showed the utmost patience and empathy for people who definitely didn't deserve it. He took us back to Jesse's childhood, explains his fears and his neighbors, teases the audience with sympathy for him. This must have been extremely hard, to humanize a character who would have absolutely hated him. I get defensive when I talk to a Trump sympathizer so I have an enormous amount of respect for Baldwin, tracing the narrative of a racist despite their immense cruelty to people who looked like him. I strive to have this kind of poise.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar reaction upon reading such racist remarks. It was extremely unsettling as it was strictly in this person's mind, with no counter-argument. I also like the modern day connections you made as this story is still relevant today.
DeleteIn American history, it is often the case that the wrongdoings of our society are overwritten in favor of a more positive and progressive history. Such is especially the case as pertains to the race war our country has dealt with ever since its founding. We learn of the Abraham Lincoln and how he freed the slaves, but overlook the fact that he only did so according to popular demand. We learn of the Civil War and how the North won, but stop at the happy ending, never going beyond to examine the system of inequality that arose from a failed attempt at reconstruction. We learn of Martin Luther King Jr. and how he helped gain civil rights for the black citizens of our society, but forget to mention Malcom X with his more extreme tactics of gaining civil rights beyond the powers of the government, or James Baldwin’s controversial writings on the day-to-day life of black people in America.
ReplyDeleteYes, American history is hesitant to reveal any wrong doings on its part, but forget the writers who live to document these times to share with current and future generations. As mentioned before, Baldwin was such a figure in relation to the 1960’s fight for civil rights. He never shied from seeming too controversial in his narratives of the horrors that were endowed on black people, and relished in the graphic details of the harm done upon their society.
Perhaps nowhere better is this displayed than in his short story, Going to Meet the Man. Beyond describing in detail the brutal lynching of a convicted-black man (who’s crime as far as the audience is concerned is pushing a white woman), but he also explores the hard-to-swallow truths of white supremacy and the reason behind its continued existance. The story follows a white narrator by the name of Jesse and the brutal violence he’s participated in/witnessed against black people in his community. The beginning manifests itself in an exploration of Jesse failures and his inability in the moment to perceive the problems of himself and instead blaming it on the black community within his society. In his exploration of black people, especially the fact of a “black girl caus[ing] a distant excitement in him,” and turning such a feeling of positivity into a hatred of black people. And from all this Jesse is able to source back to a time when he was about eight, where his compassion for black people soon turns sour under the influence of his parents and fellow white community around him. What was once a desperate feeling to care for his dear black friend Otis became “a joy he had never felt before, he watched the hanging, gleaming body, the most beautiful and terrible object he had ever seen till then.” This shift was not caused by any particular ideal Jesse had developed as a boy of eight, but from the influence of white people and a society built off of the “superior” race. What Baldwin tries to inference here is that racism isn’t something naturally occuring within a society and between its people, but instead something learned and used as a justification for a need to stay within power after surviving so many years as such.
In his story “Going to Meet the Man” James Baldwin tells the story of the lynching of a black man through the eyes of a young white boy. It is interesting that Baldwin would choose to tell this story from that point of view. Through this story the reader sees the process of the oppressor, as well as the motivation. This story seems to insinuate that hatred is taught and learned. One is not born hating every member of a certain race. It is taught. Jesse is brought to this “picnic” as a sort of initiation for him. Jesse felt as though “his father had carried him through a mighty test, had revealed him to a great secret which would be the key to his life forever.” He was brought to the “picnic” to be taught a cruel and evil lesson that would shape the rest of his life. This early memory would stay with him, influence his actions and his beliefs. Despite the fact that Jesse had a black friend named Otis, he “felt a joy he had never before” while watching the lynching. What would cause Jesse to have such a change in the way he feels? Is it because it is easier to go along with the crowd? Is it because he finally felt as though he belonged somewhere, in this group of people? Is it because he felt powerful and superior? Whatever the cause may be, it’s influence lasts for the rest of his life. Jesse continues this hatred into adulthood, blaming black people for all of his problems. Racism is learned, and once it is learned it is a dangerous weapon, intensified by the influence and hatred of others around you.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of the "picnic" being an initiation is a really interesting one. I didn't think of that, but it makes sense because of the way that it is such a crucial turning point for Jesse's life.
DeleteI like how you referred to racism as a "dangerous weapon."
DeleteThe story “Going to Meet the Man” by James Baldwin deals with very heavy issues in the most blunt way. Typically, stories and lessons about racism from any time period are censored and just give us the overall idea. This story is grotesque and morbid to the point where it could not be fiction. It could only be based on true events because no person could sanely think this up and write it down. Saying this, it deals with a couple of issues from the time. The main one, I believe, is what is being passed down by generation. In the story the African Americans sing constantly, on the streets, in their homes, especially when they are thrown in jail. They “ain’t going to stop singing” because it’s what they have to keep going, to keep fighting, to live. This is something that African Americans have done throughout history. It is their culture, it is one of the things that is constant in most stories like “Sonny’s Blues” and “Going to Meet the Man”. This is just a side note though. The disgusting main character was more dramatically shaped by his parents and surroundings when he was young. You can see throughout the story that he is conflicted, but doesn’t understand why. It is as if his ethics, some moral standard that we might all be born with but can be shattered by childhood, was trying to fight its way to the surface. In the end, it does not win. It is an extremely difficult story to read, riddled deplorable language, thoughts, and actions. It was something I was not expecting at all after reading “Sonny’s Blues”. But it is still important to see this side of the story. The idea that whites are not inherently bad, they are not the enemy, was brought up in the documentary. And, although this story made me feel such a shaking combination of shame and disgust, it did illustrate that the basis of people might not be bad. The main character, Jesse, is a product of his parents. As a young boy his is friends with a black boy, until his whole town goes to a burning of a black man. It is then that the boy is twisted out of innocent boyhood. His father has forced him to watch this torture of a human being, therefore making it clear that torture, such as that, is something entertaining. Now the reader may understand Jesse’s infatuation with the pain and abuse of the colored men and women thrown in jail. It is because, as a young boy, that was what was taught as right. There is some internal conflict inside Jesse, as I mentioned earlier, but it is not enough to move him, not enough to make him see what is wrong, not enough for him to think back to his old friend Otis and wonder if he turned out okay. The damage that his father did to him was so catastrophic that he grew up to be just like him.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder what our years of slavery and racism and injustice has done to our brains. All the things we unconsciously think because of how we were raised and trained. Today we believe we have come so far from that place where this story is told, but I wonder how much farther we have to go. How much do we not see? It is horrifying to question your own moral standing, but Jesse never did. I think that is what James Baldwin wants us to do. Obviously, a key component to one’s character is how they were raised. I can say with 100% confidence that there is not one single person on this planet that is free from some generational twisting, some unconscious bias, some ingrained superstition. It could be with anything, not just race relations. It is a much broader and deeper concern.
One thing that for some reason is ingrained into my head is how the pure basis of racism is literally spoken and influenced into creation. What I mean by that is when one is born they arent born with any prenotion of race, gender, sex, or whatever. As the child develops they think and act like the people around them and the people around them think and act like the people around them when they were kids and so on. So in the story Going To Meet The Man when Baldwin talks about how the narrator as a kid looked up to his dad and smiled at the gruesome lynching, its not the kids fault he doesnt understand the gravity of the situation. After generations and generations of conditioning it's hard for people to be like “oh yeah guys that's definitely inhumane” regardless of how gruesome and unethical actions may be due to how prolonged the conditioning is which goes back hundreds of years. Iit is hard to break a bad habit that you've maybe strategy in the last couple weeks but imagining trying to think differently when what's been ingrained into you has been passed down from generations. This brought me back to that one part in the film where Baldwin talks about how he had a white school teacher that was nice to him and thus he didn't grow up with the assumption that all white people were evil. It is very realistic to think that if he never had that white teacher his perception of the race issue could've been different - we might not have gotten such a poised Baldwin, we might not have any of his literary works, who knows how different he would be. And this ambiguity is what makes the argument so gray area. It's not like as an adult, he can just switch his racism off and see how inhumane it is due to him being conditioned. Just like how when Jesse is laying in bed with his wife Grace he can't seem to become aroused by just her, she is described as“silent, angry, and helpless” . He needs to think about the black women or the harrasing of the man they pulled into prison - showing how he's almost brainwashed in a sense to such a degree that he needs the conditioning and can't function without it - almost like its a part of him.
ReplyDeleteIn James Baldwin unsettling short story, the main character, Jesse, is a police officer, in the deep south. The story happens over the course of one night, where Jesse tells his wife about his day and what the experience made him remember. It is particularly interesting that Baldwin would chose to tell his story through the lens of a white man, we are often told to write about what we know, but the author made the deliberate choice to display someone else’s point of view in the story. Being exposed to sexualized violence at a young age, torturing a black boy gave him a “peculiar excitement which refused to be released” (1383) and something “deep in his memory was stirred”(1383). The story deals directly with the conditioning of racist ideology in children. In a flashback to Jesse’s youth, we see a boy who would happily go play with his black neighbor, be indoctrinated, through trauma, to hate black individuals and everything they stood for. Baldwin creates a thought-provoking narrative where the audience is asked to almost feel sorrow for the main character, because of what he was forced to see at such a young age, but them it shifts to the way he faced the experience as an almost religious one. It creates a discussion of personal guilt in a racism driven system, while retaining the fact that certain individuals were more guilty than others in the oppression and dehumanization of African Americans.
ReplyDeleteMuch of the violence that has taken place in the struggle for racial equality is inconceivable to the vast majority of people today. The thought of killing, much less torturing another person should never be pleasant to anyone who is not sick in the head, no matter how much anger or hatred they feel. Not only can we see the malevolent actions of whites towards blacks in Going to Meet the Man, but we can see the way they felt about it, such as how Jesse’s father’s eyes “were very peaceful” and his mother was “talking and laughing with the other women” all as a black man was beaten, burned, emasculated, and torn to shreds by other human beings. Why did people have the ability to witness such crimes and treat it like a picnic? Is it really possible to naturally be this evil?
ReplyDeleteThe only person who seems to have the proper reaction to the murder is Jesse, being just a boy and all. Baldwin states that “Jesse screamed, and then the crowd screamed… ” because Jesse screamed out of fear, not triumph. He was of the few that were not conditioned to the evilness, not plagued by societal inducing racism. This shows how we, as people of all different races, are not immune to the mob mentality. We learn our hatred. We learn what our fear. Just like Bladwin discussess in “I Am Not Your Negro,” about segregation being a wall and racism being the reason that we don’t venture over the wall. By writing a story with the perspective of a white man, one can see the development of his being. Seeing his parents behavior caused Jesse to be afraid. Afraid in a way that causes him to desire raping black women just for the thrill. As terrible as it is, we can see where the policeman really got his gun. By straying from the single story, Baldwin opens up our horizons to the oppressors so that we can see their stories, too. Maybe we can only, all together, fix what we believe is the problem if we can dig up its roots, as painful as they may be. Maybe helping the people that are being set back wont work unless we change the people setting them back. Should we fight against the hatred, or should we find where it’s coming from?
This story gave me a lot of different feelings and brought me to many realizations. Usually when we learn about civil rights, we are reading from an African American perspective because it will give us insight to their struggles and difficulties of everyday life. But this story is from a white man's perspective, more importantly, a white sheriff deputy’s perspective. So he deals with African Americans everyday and we get to see the way he treats them and the reasoning behind it. Even the way he just casually talks about his day at work with his wife at the end of the day is extremely intolerant and would get a lot of hate for being racist today, but was normal during his time. He casually drops the n word multiple times and uses other discriminatory and offensive names like ringleaders and pickaninnies. Calling them these names takes away their realness, it makes it like the African Americans are animals and it doesn’t matter if they are beaten, tortured, and oppressed.
ReplyDeleteSomething that confused me is when Jesse said “There were still lots of good n****** around,” and “they hadn’t all gone crazy.” I feel like when we look back on this time, we learn about all the most influential African Americans, who in the eyes of the white americans back then were the bad ones that had gone crazy. And it was the opposite way back then. The good ones were the ones who sat back and did what the white men said, and the crazy ones are the ones who are speaking out for their rights and standing up for themselves.
There was a scene from this story that was very powerful and will stick with me for a long time. It was when Jesse tells the story of his day of work to his wife and he describes the beating that he gave to a black boy who was probably around our age and was just protesting for rights that he deserved that we have now and take for granted. He describes the awful things he does to this boy, making it very hard to read. It is hard to believe that someone is capable of doing something like that. And of course, we have heard the stories coming from the African Americans being beaten, and hearing it from the white man giving the beating gives a unique perspective that allows us to further understand the extent to which some white people would go to continue to oppress black people. There is still no justification for the way whites treated the black population back then, it is just a different point of view which enables us to learn the thoughts and feelings of all parties involved in the civil rights movement.
I agree with you, especially about us taking rights we have now for granted, when they were so hard to fight for. We don't realize how much we have.
DeleteChronologically, Jesse’s progression from an innocent child to a violently racist adult makes sense. He begins as a child with a black friend named Otis, and when “he did not quite understand what was happening … he had grown accustomed, for the solution to such mysteries, to go to Otis.” Through Jesse’s friendship with Otis, Baldwin is showing that children are born neutral. They are not born racist; that much is taught, and in this case it is taught by Jesse’s father who enthusiastically brings along his young son to a lynching, telling him it is a picnic, and that he “won’t ever forget this picnic-!” This is Jesse’s first exposure to violence of this scale, and frankly, the description shocked me as a reader. It was very graphic, and too much for a young boy to witness without repercussions. These repercussions include an overall disrespect for black people as he ages (including his belief that “they were too dumb to know they were being cheated blind” when he worked as a money collector), ending eventually in outward acts of aggression and violence aimed directly at black people, from the women he rapes, to the man he beat up. Baldwin shows an interesting transition, which leaves the audience to wonder how to change such horrors. How can we, as a society, prevent our children from becoming racist and cruel if they are in fact born neutral? Baldwin is calling for white adults to raise their children a more open minded fashion, and to teach their children to see black people as equals, which, in 1965, is a highly controversial idea. Personally, I think this still applies to today, and the concept can be expanded beyond that of race. Parents in today’s world should be careful that they raise their children not to be not only racist, but homophobic, transphobic, or sexist. If we teach our children to respect others, then the world will be a much kinder place.
ReplyDeleteThe story Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin is one of the most uncomfortable reads I’ve ever had. The mind of Jesse, the white man, looking at black people during this transitional era is upsetting. Baldwin is vivid in his depiction of what someone in Jesse’s position might actually be thinking. Jesse’s actions are both comfortable, and uncomfortable to him. This story humanizes him and why he turned out how he did. It’s not always a natural hatred, sometimes it is conditioned and the rationale being “He was only doing his duty.” The scene at the end in which the genitalia of the lynched man is removed for all to see was difficult to read. How could you do that to a fellow human being? But to Jesse “They were animals, they were no better than animals, what could be done with people like that?” Now we shouldn’t be justifying actions like the ones taken by the white people in this story against the black, but having a back story, a sort of reason for how they turned out the way that they did makes readers less inclined to hate. Because we should stop hating people for their hatred, because it perpetuates a cycle as they’ll hate you for hating them and so on and so forth. You should definitely not approve nor like nor desire these characteristics of hatred and prejudice in a person. But if that person who was ignorant was actually you on the other side, wouldn’t you want someone to enlighten you, and help you learn to be a better and more accepting person? I don’t hate Jesse. I feel bad for Jesse. People screwed up his life and he became a person who screws up people’s lives. I feel bad for the people who are caught in the crossfire of teaching hatred. I feel bad for the people who are hateful, because it’s hard to know better sometimes. And it’s hard to think differently than you’ve ever before.
ReplyDeleteI also felt a sense of sympathy for Jesse because of his ignorance. It is not something you can change if you aren't aware of it.
DeleteJames Baldwin enters this discussion in a rather blunt way, shocking the modern reader with his strong language, especially in his use of the N word in an insulting and extremely derogatory manner. His discussion of issues surrounding race is equally as forthright and blunt, and yet it contains a complex and subtler commentary in the same instance. Throughout “Going to Meet the Man”, he broaches the subject of sexual dominance, and by extension physical dominance as well. The story is centered around Jesse, opening on him and his current inability to sexually perform. Baldwin simultaneously introduces his racist tendencies, but also the confusion he feels, for while attempting to have intercourse with his wife, he wishes she would “help him out, just for a little while, the way he could ask a n***** girl to do it”. Early on, the theme of sexuality is tied into the look at the conflict between blacks and whites in this story. When torturing the ringleader of a group of protesters, a boy he met before, with a cattle prod, the “prod hit [the boy’s] testicles”. Again, Baldwin portrays the need for Jesse to feel dominant sexually, as he targets the boy’s testicles, hinting at an underlying feeling of being threatened by the black man. Again, this sense of sexual dominance comes with a sense of physical dominance, as Jesse is described to be standing over this boy, torturing him. Jesse is portrayed as unconsciously needing this somehow, and he even begins “shaking” afterwards, showing his distorted and confused emotions in physical form. Jesse then flashes back to an event from his childhood, as the story traces this unconscious need for dominance, where Jesse witnesses the lynching of a black man. However, before the man is killed, he is castrated, in a disturbingly described sequence, using language portraying the castrater as “cradling” and “caressing” the man’s “privates”. Jesse’s first thought is of how the man’s privates are “huge, huge, much bigger than his fathers”. Baldwin is showing that this sexual fear of being bested by a black man causes Jesse, and the rest of the whites, to degrade and oppress blacks. This mirrors how Jesse notices the size of the man, as “a big man, a bigger man than his father”. The comparisons between this man and Jesse’s father symbolizes the comparison between blacks and whites as a whole, in the eyes of the white man at the time. The story closes on Jesse returning to his sleeping wife, and suddenly his ability to perform sexually is restored, but only as he rapes his wife, dragging her from her sleep not giving her a choice in the matter. In a twisted way, he is attempting to show dominance over the black man, saying he is going to “do [her] like a n*****”, again lashing out due to his fear of inferiority. It is an issue not comfortably discussed or acknowledged, and yet a reason for the racism of the past and present that cannot be ignored: fear of being inferior to another, and thus a desire to push that group downwards until they lack power, and no longer are viewed as a threat.
ReplyDeleteUncomfortable is a good word to describe the feeling that Baldwin’s writing evokes, and especially in doing this analysis I understood that feeling. Yet, this makes it all the more important to read him, as the uncomfortable conversations are often the ones that have more truth in them, and that can bring about discoveries on the surrounding world, and on the individual self.
I think that your point about the fear of inferiority really gets at what Baldwin is trying to say. The reason why Jesse acts the way he does toward black people is fueled by this fear, something that troubled him in his past and combined with the problems in society to drive his hatred.
DeleteWhile reading this I honestly had a very hard time finding a topic I wanted to talk about. And I know that's the point, no one wants to talk about these kinds of topics, but for me I think it wasn't that it made me uncomfortable, it just made me angry. I was raised to never talk badly about people, even if they were bad people, because if you put bad in the world that's what you'll get back. The way Jesse acted throughout the whole story made my blood boil, and it all started with the first paragraph. When him and his wife are trying to be intimate he gets frustrated because he can't get himself in the mood, but when his wife tries to let him know that he needs rest because he's been working hard, he gets even more upset and says that its the African Americans faults because they "can't learn." Then he continues to get excited at the idea of a black girl doing any sort of sexual act for him that he can't even imagine asking his wife. Okay, there's a lot to break down with that. Starting with him saying that the African Americans will never learn, he never specifies what they don't learn. I mean, it's easy to assume that he means learn their place in society, and that he's frustrated that they want to be treated as humans with equal rights, instead of being treated horribly and called animals. What Jesse fails to understand, due to the time and the way that he was raised, if they just let them have what they want, and listened to what they had to say, they wouldn't be such a “problem”. There would be no reason for him to get mad and his job wouldn't be harder, because (and I say this with a very hopeful outlook on the situation) there wouldn't be anyone fighting. Another thing that gets me so mad about this section is not only the way he treated his wife, but the way he treats African American women. The problem I have with him getting turned on by the idea of a black woman doing whatever he wants for him, is the fact that he has absolutely no problem with saying that individuals like her are animals and that theyre all stupid and should be treated like the mud on his shoes, and that he has no problem with beating an imprisioned African American man. But when it comes to his sexual desires and what he wants, he has no problem enjoying their presence in his life. He also talks down to his wife in this scene when all she was doing was trying to calm him down and show some concern for him, and he yells at her and puts all the blame on the African Americans. It's so frustrating and so disappointing that people act like this and think its okay, even today in the world we live in. I don't see the point in living in a world where you hate people by things such as race, religion, gender and sexuality. It should be taught at a young age that a person is a person, no matter what, and every person deserves the amount of respect that they give other people. I have zero respect for people who think its okay to belittle someone for something that they either can't control, or something that they believe in.
ReplyDeleteThe story also made me very angry, but it's interesting that a story fueled by the hate and anger of Jesse makes us also so irate. One could say that this shows what anger and prejudice do, they create more and more negative emotions. It is a frustrating story and situation and thing to think about in general
DeleteWhat struck me in this story was the overt racism and sexism expressed throughout it. In the beginning, the objectification of black women made me extremely uncomfortable, especially because the main character did not seem to care much for his wife either. .He viewed black women as objects for him to use for his own personal pleasure, and nothing more. He also has a moment where he is seemingly surprised to enjoy being close to his wife. “He felt something he had never felt before. He felt that he would like to hold her,” it said. This does not appear to be a very healthy relationship. While telling her of the lynching, there were many instances where he demonstrated racist views, however, one part made me question whether his views had changed. While watching the slow and torturous death of the boy, he asked himself why it was happening, and what the boy had done. At this moment, I thought he had sympathy for the boy, and was perhaps going to say something aloud, but he ended up watching with joy as the brutality continued. The gruesome description of how this boy was murdered really stuck with me, and put more meaning behind what activists, like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., have said. In the film, they showed their requests for change, and mentioned the Kennedy brothers not always supporting the movement. It is shocking to me that there could be lynchings so sickening, yet people still not caring to make every effort possible for racial equality to be a reality.
ReplyDeleteIn James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man”, it offers violent descriptions of what life was like during the Jim Crow Era in the South from the perspective of a white man. However, instead of being a story where the main character, Jesse changes or has an understanding, he stays racist the entire time equating black people as “no better than animals”. It has flashbacks to the time where he beat a man who nearly to death for singing that day who before passing out stands up to Jesse saying they would “keep on singing until every one of you miserable white mothers go stark raving out of your minds”. This puts Jesse in a position where he experiences an erection while he is unable to for his wife. His last flashback to a violent lynching he watched in his childhood is hard to read not only because of what happens to the man but the way the crowd simply watched on. Reading such stories give a perspective on what African Americans are fighting for today and what kinds of events were the cause of the outrage.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with what you're saying about him not changing. He has the potential to, but that potential is lost. Even when he is humanized to the readers, he dehumanizes himself with his actions.
DeleteOften history is written or told by white people. I think it is very interesting that Baldwin told the story of Jesse in “Going To Meet The Man” through the perspective of a white man. This choice demonstrates Baldwin’s ideas in “I am Not Your Negro” that the issues of racial inequality are not "because of" black people or white people. He does not hate particular races, he sees a larger problem among people as a whole. The perspective of Jesse brings a sense of understanding in a way to white people with racist ideals. Rather than holding pure hatred, Baldwin works to understand why and how people become filled with so much rage. Jesse grows up without a particular mindset regarding race. He is curious about his black friend Otis and does not seem to understand his father’s remarks about him. He repeats what he hears his father and other white adults say about black people without thinking. Though he does question the violence and rage that he sees saying, “What did he do?” This shows that hatred and racism are things that people are taught, not born with in any way.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading “Going to Meet the Man” by James Baldwin, one idea that struck out, or lacked, was empathy. Throughout the story, I was amazed at the fact that the narrator was never able to sympathize with African Americans. Among all of them that were introduced to us in the story, the narrator looked down upon each one of them with contempt. But as I progressed in the story, I realized that this mindset in the narrator stemmed from his life as a youth. The narrator remembers “a crowd rushing forward tearing at the body with their hands.” As children, one of our instincts is to be like adults, especially our parents, follow their actions. From a young age, this narrator grew up in a household where African Americans were looked down upon. On top of that, most people living in the narrator’s community expressed the same views of his parents. If a young boy sees hundreds of adults, of whom are his parents, “ripping apart” a black man, obviously the boy is going to believe that that action is fine and African Americans are inferior. I believe that because of this attitude in many white Americans during the 20th century, racial inequality was allowed to prevail for so long. Only when parents taught their kids the idea that anyone regardless of race or religion is equal, did this imbalance go down.
ReplyDeleteIn the text and in the documentary we watched, there are themes that remain constant between them. The documentary was actually an easier version to stomach of some of the issues we see in the text. In the documentary they focus heavily on how the black community has been put at a lower position than white people in American society. However in the text it shows a genuine example of someone who has extreme racist qualities. Which unfortunately was probably more common than most would like to believe in the height of the civil rights movement. I find two pieces of the text to be particularly alarming, that the main character is able to genuinely feel inside him that black people are less than human and act upon it. This is displayed when he relentlessly beats the boy in jail to try and get the others to stop singing. When prodding him he shows no sign of empathy which you would expect between an interaction with two human beings. Secondly, the man is able to somewhat rationalize the decisions he makes. He even thinks that there are some black people who would thank him for getting rid of what he views as the bad black people. These two disturbing facts also lead to the conclusion that this man does not know that he is a racist. He feels like he is entitled to do anything he deems fit to these poor people as long as they are black. Despite this being a piece of what I am pretty sure is fictional literature, I feel that this has more truth to it than most non fiction articles from the time. Like a newspaper from Birmingham Alabama or another racially biased source. To me, Baldwin does an excellent job of opening up a situation that to the African Americans was much too real.
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ReplyDeleteJames Baldwin explains the mindset of a white southern police officer and how he came to have a pure hatred for Black Americans in his short story, “Going to meet the man.” I think that it is quite interesting that the action is being told by a white man’s viewpoint because it gives us access to his thoughts and feelings whereas in the other short piece, “Sonny Blues” James Baldwin wrote it from the perspective of a black man. Reading this I was shocked. I did not know how horrifying and brutal it would be. I feel like in a way this story was so graphic and violent that it kinda took me away from the main idea of racism for a bit. Like when Jesse was continuously reminded of the day when the whites performed an act of lynching, “The black body was on the ground, the head was caved in, one eye was torn out one ear was hanging. But one had to look carefully to realize this, for it was, now, merely, a black charred object on the black, charred ground.” This awful act of lynching was supposed to show the white’s superiority but it only really demonstrated how scared the racist whites were about losing their power and dominance.
ReplyDelete“Going to Meet the Man” by James Baldwin was unlike anything I had ever read because I have never read anything so disturbing or insulting. It is a very deep piece because of the topic it presents which is mostly racism. It is the story of a young man who starts off with a woman in bed and he uses the n-word and many other swear words to express his anger and thoughts not only to her but the reader. I am questioning why Baldwin wrote this way as his other pieces such as “I Am Not Your Negro” completely differs from the young man’s point of view in this short story. He insulted other people, specifically African Americans by defining them as “animals”, saying, “...what could be done with people like that?” (1382). This young man, although insulting, truly portrays an average white man during the civil rights era - with racist thoughts similar to what an actual person would’ve said about African Americans. Reading this piece made me feel so uncomfortable because it is so insulting, hurtful, and racist towards not only the characters but all African Americans. The insulting perspective this man gives the reader shows how people thought almost one hundred years ago in a unique way, however, because it shows the comparison from then and now.
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ReplyDeleteThis story was shocking from beginning to end. In Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin, the idea that one is not born racist but taught it, is expressed. The narrator named Jesse, a white officer, describes his daily life working in a prison. The story describes Jesse beating a black inmate, “...the boy was out. And now he was shaking worse than the boy had been shaking. He was glad no one could see him. At the same time, he felt very close to a very peculiar, particular joy; something deep in him and deep in his memory was stirred.” Jesse experiences joy and familiarness from beating this black man, until he passes out. This connects back to the lynching described towards the end of the story. Jesse, as a young boy, had a black friend named Otis. Jesse hadn't seen Otis in a few days and his mother and father told him that they were going to a “picnic” that he would never forget. Being confused as to what this “picnic” was, all Jesse could think to do was to ask Otis, he had “grown accustomed, for the solution of such mysteries to go to Otis. He felt that Otis knew everything.” Jesse knew that something wasn’t right and knew it was something racial and that he could not ask Otis. After the lynching, Jesse wasn’t upset or mortified, he was actually happy and content which was so shocking to me. The fact that a little kid could watch this and not run away or be scared or think that this was horribly wrong was so shocking to me. The story goes on to Jesse’s father talking to Jesse saying, “Well I told you.. You wasn’t never going to forget this picnic.” Jesse’s feelings were then described, “At that moment Jesse loved his father more than he had ever loved him. He felt that his father had carried him through a mighty test, had revealed to him a great secret which would be the key to his life forever.” And it was “the key” to Jesse’s life “forever.” Jesse grows up hating, abusing and hurting black people with no remorse. Baldwin shows that at one point Jesse was innocent but through his parents and the time period and beliefs during this time, this innocence is stolen. He looks up to his mother and father and believes what they believe and wants to be like them. This causes a lifelong lasting pattern of racism in Jesse's life. Overall, I didn't like reading this piece. It was hard to read and imagine what was going on. It was really disturbing to me that a young innocent boy grows up to have so much hatred for human beings just based on their race. It’s hard to know that this was something that did happen.
ReplyDeleteIn this short story, James Baldwin talks on the issues of oppression that was placed over black people by whites. Though this is a tale of fiction, the truth that stands out in the storyline is unforgiving and shocking to many of the readers. Though it is fiction, these events could have very possibly been a reality to people. Over the course of the story, there is an immense atmosphere of hate and confusion. In the course of history, fear has often driven many to such extremes, such extremes that have shaped the culture and relations between individuals. The main character Jesse has been forced into this narrowed perspective of viewing the white man superior. James Bladwin examines the racial psychology of the deep south and the Jim Crow Laws. The story is partly a commentary on the relationship between sexuality and the oppressive racial dynamic of the Old South. The very vivid, and grotespque flashback of a murder of a black man that is revealed to be a bonding moment with Jesse and his father, but also points to the sexual insecurity of rasict white men, when the black man is tortured. The African American man who "steps out of line" is viewed as a threat not only to white women, but also to the sexual dominance of white men. By extension, this also applies to the economic and political control exercised by white men. Baldwin’s intention in his writing does not hold back on the animalistic nature that can be revealed in humans. As he explores Jesse’s typical white attitudes, Baldwin is able to include every conceivable motif in the history of racial conflict in the United States: the sexual provocativeness of the black race to the white mind; the instinctive fear of reprisal by the repressed race; the aesthetic provincialism in whites toward black features, and the typical assumptions about black inferiority. Baldwin does not hold back from the truth of society, making sure that everyone knows the damage of racism on society as a whole.
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