Directions: View the documentary and read the two short stories (you will view the documentary in class). Next, compose a thoughtful blog post using evidence from all three works in an attempt to explore one of the complex issues Baldwin examined in his discussion of race in America. Be okay with feeling uncomfortable. Ask questions. Look for feedback. Also, practice kindness. We can discuss these matters with passion AND civility.
I Am Not Your Negro (2017)
We will begin viewing the documentary. In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, "Remember This House." The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of this manuscript. Filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. How can Baldwin's ideas be used to inform us today? Can you cite instances in the documentary that opened your eyes, and show us how you see this drama playing out in 2018?
Here is a helpful study guide:
http://learn.kera.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro-DG-Film-Club.pdf
"Sonny's Blues" (1957) by James Baldwin
The first-person narrator of "Sonny's Blues" tells the story of his relationship with his younger brother, Sonny. The story begins with narrator, saddened by his brother's choices, reflecting back on their childhood, wondering what caused his brother to become an addict. How does Baldwin use jazz as a means of discussing the complex emotions of his characters? This is the most anthologized of Baldwin's stories. However, how would this story end up perpetuating "the danger of the single story?"
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/Baldwin-Sonnys-Blues.pdf
For many individuals, the relationships that exist between family members are the strongest and most influential human connections that the person will ever experience within his or her lifetime. These bonds, formed in early psycho-social development, have the potential to permanently define how a person views his or her world. Through the eyes of Jesse, we see how racism is handed down from generation to generation in one of the most graphic scenes in the literary canon. Using moments from the story, where are you seeing similar instances in the world today?
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ReplyDeleteAn idea presented by James Baldwin that really struck me was that our actions speak to a view of others and the world that we are often not conscious of. Baldwin states that he is, “terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really don't think I’m human. I base this on their conduct, not on what they say. And this means that they have become, in themselves, moral monsters.” In “Going to Meet the Man”, Jesse’s actions plainly appear morally wrong to the reader, but to him, he is only, “Protecting white people from the niggers and the niggers from themselves” (1753). Jesse thinks of blacks as animals. But only because he himself, by repeating the actions of his role models, has become “a man” (1754). The difficulty of the matter is that today, we still act like these members of society are “no better than animals” (1750). Each time we speak of the poverty cycle in relation to predominantly black communities, we wonder “what could be done with people like that?” (1750). On the other hand, if the single story is conceded to by the opposing party, it becomes perpetuated on both sides. In “Sonny’s Blues”, Father is convinced that “every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother” (8). If African Americans living the modern single story of poverty simply accept that their future has been “killed” by every “white man,” then their condition is, in fact, inherent. If it is assumed that there “isn’t any other tale to tell,” then how can there be “light...in all this darkness”? (16).
ReplyDeleteI think you pose an interesting question at the end of your blog. I like that you mention the modern single story of poverty, this a good connection to the story of Sonny's Blues and to everyday life. Often we follow the narrative of there not being "any other tale to tell" and continue to believe the same tale we've always been told.
DeletePrior to the two short stories and the documentary, I had never heard of James Baldwin or his work. Now that I have more of an understanding of his radical opinions and the leeway he made in literature for the black community, I have come to appreciate him and his work immensely. The documentary had a profound impact on me, as Baldwin brought up and discussed so many ideas of black culture and history that I have not researched nor understood in depth before. One scene in particular that stood out to me was when Baldwin made an appearance on Dick Cavett’s talk show. During his appearance, Baldwin eloquently discussed his opinion on the “white man” and their continual oppression of black Americans. When a white professor comes out and very blatantly, “disagreed with a whole lot of,” what he said, Baldwin is able to hold his own with ease and politeness, demonstrating that he is most likely used to being attacked for his beliefs. While it was a very different time back then, I feel as though people would be surprised at how relevant Baldwin’s ideas, opinions, and experiences are today. A moment that really struck me was when Baldwin discussed his relationship with a young white woman, stating that they had to travel separately, as the woman was safer walking alone than with him. Being a young woman in 2018, I know first hand how scary it is to walk around alone at night, which makes the fact that the woman was safer alone than with Baldwin that much more disturbing to me today. I feel as though this revelation in particular would make an impact on other young women today, and Baldwin’s experiences inform us that even the most trivial of things like walking home at night had to be carefully calculated in order to remain safe.
ReplyDeleteI found the first short story to be incredibly relevant to the notion of the single story. While Baldwin initially believes Sonny to be “killing himself” by doing drugs and being purposely reckless, he fails to understand Sonny’s side of things and just how much of an affect his childhood has had on his adult choices and addiction. There is almost a parallel between Sonny’s addiction and his love and desire to be a “jazz musician”; Baldwin does not understand Sonny’s side of the story in either instance. By refusing to hear Sonny’s story for so long, Baldwin creates a gap between him and his brother, effectively damaging their relationship and perpetuating the danger of the single story. The only sign of reconciliation between the two comes when Baldwin finally takes the time to understand Sonny and his life struggles. The jazz scene at the end of the story does a great job at explaining the complex emotions of the characters; at one point, Baldwin says, “something had happened, something I hadn’t heard,” which attributes itself to Baldwin’s ignoring his brother and his troubles for so long.
The second short story was incredibly disturbing to me; however, Baldwin undeniably created this story to do just that. We see in his childhood that Jesse had, “a black friend, Otis,”. Immediately, this is troubling as the reader has already seen just how cruel and punishing Jesse is toward black Americans later in his life. However, we soon discover it is his father who transforms Jesse’s mind from that of an innocent child to an unforgiving, racist adult. When seeing the hanging black man, Jesse is said to, “feel a joy he had never felt before,”. In terms of the world today, we can see this generational passing down of racism clearly still. Racism is not something ingrained in a person’s mind at birth, it is taught to them.
Similar to you Kristy, I had never heard of James Baldwin before this assignment, which makes me feel ignorant due to the importance of his work. I agree that his work is extremely impactful and his actions were integral to continue prompting change.
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ReplyDeleteI think that both of the short stories by James Baldwin as well as the documentary really demonstrated the negative impacts of the single story. He discusses how it can perpetuate racism and be hurtful in other ways. The documentary I am Not Your Negro touches upon James Baldwin’s ideas about racism. One of the ideas he brought up was that white people’s fear of black people is unfounded and based off of hateful ideas that have been taught to them by their parents whereas a black person’s fear of white people is based off of real experiences and generations of oppression. In perpetuating negative stereotypes about black people to their children, white people are ensuring that their children will assume that these generalizations are true and will only hear this racist single story that has been given to them by their parents.
In the short story “Going to Meet the Man” Baldwin further explores the racist single story of black people that has been and still is taught to white children today to a certain extent. The main character Jesse who is white reflects on his early childhood in which he had a black friend named Otis and was still too young to understand the concept of racism. When his parents start to have Jesse stop seeing Otis, he is confused and does not understand why they cannot continue to see each other. Jesse slowly loses his innocent way of thinking as he witnesses the lynching of a black man. At the beginning of the story when Jesse is a child he refers to the black people as “black,” but as the story progresses, he starts referring to them as “niggers.” This change in word usage signifies the beginning of Jesse’s change from an innocent child into a deeply racist adult. Rather than being sickened by the lynching of the black man as he initially was, he begins to feel a perverse sense of pleasure and excitement. As an adult, Jesse retains the racist viewpoints taught to him by his parents and sees black people as having no more worth than animals. When he works as a police officer he and his colleagues openly target black people and feels something “close to a very peculiar, particular joy” as he is beating a black man to death. The single story that had been taught to him as a child led to very damaging effects as an adult.
Baldwin also discusses the danger of the single story out of the context of race in his story “Sonny’s Blues.” The narrator’s brother Sonny is a drug addict and he recalls how he struggled to connect with his brother after their mothers’ death. Oftentimes we think of addicts as being horrible, selfish people but we rarely think of them being real people with personalities. Although Sonny is a drug addict, he is also an aspiring pianist and Baldwin shows a side of him that is not often seen when people think of addicts. Baldwin breaks down this single story that has been ingrained in us by creating a character who is an addict but does not fulfill the stereotypes we generally associate with addicts.
Sarah, I really like your point about how the "single story" is incorporated throughout all three of these works. While examining them prior, I hadn't made the connection to this earlier work that you did. How you tied it in throughout your response made a lot of sense and showed how similar all 3 works are
DeleteIn James Baldwin’s works, he explores the broad concept of racism in many ways, and in one I found most prevalent, denial. The conscious and unconscious denial of humanity, of a change that must be made, of the future the nation is heading in.
ReplyDeleteAt its core, America is deteriorating in denial. In the country’s lack of shame, in its fear of discomfort, there is a refusal to acknowledge not only its history, but the humanity of those it continues to beat down and silence. It is much easier to harm someone if you see them as unalike. This is what Jesse does in “Going to Meet the Man.” Jesse struggles to understand the people he doesn’t consider people, and why they don’t act or react in the way he expects, specifically when he is beating the man in the prison cell. This lack of understanding torments Jesse just as the changing times bring rise to new fear. Jesse holds onto the past that built him, “the past, while certainly refusing to be forgotten, could yet so stubbornly refuse to be remembered.” In his recollection of the murder of a black man, Jesse’s innocence quickly develops to mirror his parents racism, seeing the dead man as “a black charred object on the black charred ground.”
Baldwin explains that white people’s hatred is born from terror. America is destroying itself with hatred and the perpetuated hatred of this culture is denied and denied with nothing changing. As Baldwin says, “It is not a negro problem, it is a problem of looking at your life, being responsible for it, and then beginning to change it”
The fantasy of American history and present preserved through time is a blindness to the reality “of the moral apathy-the death of the heart-which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really do not think I’m human.” Today in America, when a black person is killed in some form of brutality or hate crime, the issue does not become that a black person, adult or child, has been killed, but that a police officer or a white person may face repercussions for murder. Then excuses are made to explain why they shouldn’t take full responsibility or how the deceased was somehow at fault. A human being is dead and that human life is not treated like a human life.
“Sonny’s Blues” feels like waiting. Baldwin contrasts silence with noise, music and the absence of it, a silence waiting to be heard and understood until the final pages when it comes out. The brother tries to equate Sonny with single stories about jazz, about drugs, about addiction, to try to understand him. It is when the narrator realizes, “I had never really noticed it before” while watching Sonny play, that he understands his brother. He can see the story for himself, he can feel it, and he knows more than just the single story. Sonny is not a single story, but a human being. And while it’s not directly about racism- it’s not that the narrator doesn’t consider Sonny human- it becomes the fact that the narrator doesn’t know him, doesn’t understand an integral part of him.
Jazz is improvisation and jazz is unpredictable. It is the unknown which is feared, that which cannot truly be understood without effort. It is the fear of effort and the fear of discomfort, the fear of accepting a personal truth and reforming oneself that holds an individual back from change.
Music and no music, this separation of understanding because you don’t live in the same world as someone next to you and you can’t really understand it, you can’t really hear it, until you listen to what’s being said. Change cultivates itself when you stop trying to view everyone as exactly the same but view everyone as human. Baldwin called on America to move from its denial and to accept the necessity for this change.
You brought up some really great points Audrey. I agree that the stories definitely helped detail the avoidance as an underlying issue fueling issues such as racism. While definitely not justified, I feel that they feared of what would happen if practices such as racism changed. Your explanation of jazz is also touches on good points such as how it adds an attribute of emotion and individuality beyond traditional structured music.
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DeleteI really like your analysis of Baldwin's use of jazz. I didn't realize it the first time I read the piece but completely agree that jazz is a means by which the narrator experiences a surprising dimension of Sonny, and that it is significant that jazz is improvised. Baldwin is speaking to the unpredictability of humanity.
DeleteAudrey I really love your description of Sonny's Blues: “Sonny’s Blues” feels like waiting. Baldwin contrasts silence with noise, music and the absence of it, a silence waiting to be heard and understood until the final pages when it comes out." You brought up some really powerful points, especially relating his pieces to modern police brutality, how people are more scared about the repercussions for the guilty than about the innocent black person who was shot. Black people are killed everyday by white officers and we don't even hear about it because it has become a nuance, but when a white officer is killed, there are signs posted everywhere saying "RIP Officer ..." It's horrifying that our society still has this twisted mindset that one life is more significant than another all because they wear a badge.
DeleteDelia, I totally agree with the point you made here.
DeleteI believe all three pieces cover similar issues but highlight other aspects that need to be looked at. As Audrey mentioned, I too believe that an underlying denial existed which fueled these actions. Much like how most of us overlook underplayed foreign labor and poultry processing, these actions were so widespread and relied upon that changing this couldn't be overnight. The descriptions from each piece, mainly "Sonny's Blues" cover the sense of individual struggle and how encapsulation of truly understanding everything is not simple. "Going to Meet the Man" helped highlight to me that this issue also largely is a societal problem. Among the same lines, jazz serves to embody these principles into an art-form of self expression. Jazz's uniqueness helps capture the emotions of the creator, and serve as a means of expressing that. When played though, other people's interpretations will differ as they view the music from different aspects focusing on personal experience. In my opinion, we all make mistakes, but the only determination of "good" from "bad" is a subjective comparison on the assessor. Intrinsically we drive to act in self-interest yet also wish to not negatively impact others. The balance between these two extremes is where most life dilemmas exist, the line of which is anything but clear.
ReplyDeleteYour comparison to the poultry processing helped me to further understand what Baldwin meant by the alliance whites had to the blacks. I agree the these problems cannot be changed overnight and often a balance if difficult to achieve.
DeleteI think it's interesting that you bring up the conflict between self-interest or loyalty to a group and a consequentialist mindset where an individual sacrifices for the greater good. Both values are necessary to improve society, but it is the contrast between them that causes divisions between groups.
DeleteAfter reading two of James Baldwin’s pieces, as well as the documentary we watched, I admire him for his courage, but more importantly for the truthfulness in which he writes. Speaking to a crowd, describing his own life or portraying the life of another, he is brutally honest and straightforward with his thoughts which takes a lot of bravery. One of Baldwin’s main points he was wanted to get across, is to help white people grasp a better understanding of the black perspective. As we learned, the single story can be wildly influential, as well as wildly false, as it passes down through generations. By learning and understanding multiple points of view, the simple story can become obsolete. Through his interviews on television, Baldwin shapes his words into poetic-like persuasion. To reiterate his goal of reaching the minds of the white community he states that “It is entirely up to the American people, whether or not they are going to face and deal with and embrace the stranger whom they’ve relied on so long”. His words are controversial, yet extremely important, as listeners begin to examine their own choices, and therefore his goal is achieved.
ReplyDeleteReading his narrator in Sonny’s Blues was strategically and uplifting, despite the heaviness of the topic. It is noticeable that some of the common ideas, such as his drug addiction beginning in his youth growing up in Harlem, leading to homelessness or death, can ignite dangers of the single story. Although not completely untrue, these stereotypes are not correct as James Baldwin illustrates through his own life as a talented writer and public figure. Sonny’s love of music is a worldy concept that attracts all walks of life. His admiration and dedication to music is portrayed as he recalls that “He went straight to the piano and played until supper time. After supper he went back and stayed there until everybody went to bed”. This dedication to a passion is relatable to man of any race and Baldwin uses the power of music to show the similarities between the two battling races. Going to Meet the Man was a much less uplifting piece, as the story made me sick to my stomach. However, I know this was Baldwin’s goal, once again, to make uneducated readers begin to better understand the black perspective. He writes how as a little boy, in the moment of the hanging, “loved his father more than he had ever loved him”. The idea of this ceremony being drilled into a young boy’s mind as fun or joyful, is repulsive. However, this made realize how these ideas sadly were a normality for many.
Overall, Baldwin’s work has contributed and will continue to contribute towards equality. His ideas were influential and the power of his words cannot be forgotten. In an interview he stated that “I am not a ni**er, I am a man”. This simple but powerful message culminates all of his work, into the hope for equal opportunities and representation for all, that we are still working to achieve.
I really like how you mentioned his behavior in interviews we watched. I definitely feel like he had a really impactful presence in person that was good to see along with his writing.
DeleteAs Audrey and Oliver mentioned, I also think that denial is a major factor in the practice of racism, but what also stood out to me was how isolated the two groups are. There has always been interaction between the races, but as Baldwin said in the documentary, white people did not go back to his kitchen in Harlem and see what his life was really like. In 1965, two years before the death of Malcolm X, the Kerner Commision concluded that “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal.” I found this statement to be true in every aspect of Baldwin’s work.
ReplyDeleteThere was one speech of Baldwin’s shown in the documentary where he was lecturing on the ideas of race and integration to a room full of white men, all of whom gave him a standing ovation. These people probably listened to Baldwin, and some of them probably felt for him, but that ornate lecture hall is not in any way alike to a kitchen in harlem, like the one Sonny told his brother he wanted to be a musician, a few rooms over from where that brother learned he had an uncle. Nor is it like the south, where the entire black population of a town seemed to disappear for days out of pure fear when the white people had a “picnic”, or any other place that would make them really understand Baldwin’s words. This problem was only punctuated in Sonny’s Blues by the geographic isolation of whites and african americans. Just about the only not appalling statement Jesse made in Going to Meet the Man was that in the north all the african americans live in their own communities. Baldwin makes this very clear with his description of the ride into harlem, past the park and into the slums and projects. Even the white musician and some of the clubs Sonny hangs around were in the village, not harlem. In Going to Meet the Man, the entire story is about african Americans, but Jesse only really interacts with three who he cared to remember; the protest leader, his mother and the lynched man. He sees them as an other, and while he may be close to african americans all day, the mental blockades he puts up keep him just as isolated as any fortress.
This divide was then ripped into a gaping chasm by the types of experiences people do have with the other race. Outside of the army, the narrator of Sonny’s Blues is shown to have two meaningful experiences with white people; with the men who murdered his uncle, and the white woman who owned an apartment Sonny would hang around and get high. This is the experience of a teacher, an educated public servant and veteran, who has only been shown sorrow and pain by white america. Jesse’s experiences are somehow darker and complex. As a child, the brief positive association he had with Otis was overshadowed by his dominating father’s racism and the graphic and emotional lynching. Then, as an adult, he only interacted with african americans in the context of crimes, usually committed by him. On the opposite side, the protest leader Jesse attacked likely only knew white people as Jesse, people who wanted what little money he had and disrespected his mother. James Baldwin came from a racially hostile background, but at least he had a white school teacher who did not treat him as any less to break the stereotype for him.
Politically, people tend to think of tragedy and war as great unifying forces in America. Unfortunately the same holds true here, only it resulted in other races seeing each other as forces of fear or rage who should be combated by means of tragedy and war.
I completely concur with your argument and I found your quote from the documentary regarding the division between the races to be quite profound and insightful.
DeleteLike a few other students have already mentioned, I had no clue who James Baldwin was prior to this past week. Reading his works and watching his documentary, I’m completely shocked that we weren’t taught about him and his impact earlier on in schooling, or at all. This fact that even in Massachusetts schooling James Baldwin isn’t widely discussed goes to further highlight the idea of a “single story.” I’ve realized overtime that black history and activists of the past are typically taught incorrectly or not at all. For example, when I first learned about Malcom X and MLK Jr when I was much younger, I was left under the impression that Malcom X was ‘bad’ while MLK Jr was ‘good’ due to the varying means by which they protested: MLK peacefully, and Malcom X not. However, as shown in the documentary, they both ultimately ended up working together for the same thing: Equality. So why is Malcom X taught exclusively as a polarizing radical figure, when he evolved over time to achieve his goals in the same way that MLK did? Further developing upon this topic, I remember last year seeing a viral post about a school in Texas asking students to consider slavery in a “balanced view” and list the ‘positives and negatives of slavery.’ A quote from their textbook: “All human institutions should not be oversimplified. While there were cruel masters who maimed or even killed their slaves (although killing and maiming were against the law in every state), there were also kind and generous owners. The institution was as complex as the people involved. Though most slaves were whipped at some point in their lives, a few never felt the lash. Nor did all slaves work in the fields. Some were house servants or skilled artisans. Many may not have even been terribly unhappy with their lot, for they knew no other.” The fact these quotes and worksheets are still allowed in the education system is absurd to me, and go to further develop the point others have made about the dangers of the ‘single story’ being held as truth by the new generations.
ReplyDeleteIt is to my belief that most racism is carried down through generations in either subliminal or blatant ways by parents. In the story of “Going to Meet the Man,” the main character is described as having “wrestled together in the dirt” with a black friend of his when he was really young, to “now the thought of Otis made him sick.” Racism is not something innate, it is taught. In this example, by the subject’s parents. Others in real life could be parents, other family members, friends, or a combination of all the above. While Going to Meet the Man is a fictional story, it embodies what happens so frequently within society. An innocent child in a short amount of time can easily start to believe that black people “are animals… no better than animals, what could be done with people like that?” in a matter of months all due to figures in power teaching them such. Viewing from a different perspective if the single story is propagated by the opposing party, such as In “Sonny’s Blues,” stereotypical notions can be passed down to youth as well. This is shown when the father is convinced that “every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.” Members of any party can promote a false stereotype of another, though, historically speaking, the white man has gone fairly unharmed by it, whereas other groups cannot say the same. Regardless- Ignorance is spread through baseless hate, and passed throughout generations to further develop the ‘single story.’ In all cases, education and prevention within youth is the absolute key to break down race divides.
I agree with you how "Going to Meet the Man" really emphasized how racism is something that is taught rather than something a person is born with. Jesse's evolution throughout the story from an innocent child to a hateful discriminating person is a saddening story and it highlights how Jesse may not have grown up to be the ignorant person he was had it not been for the ideas he had been taught as a child.
DeleteI love your commentary, Ally. I too remember believing Malcolm X was 'bad' and MLK Jr. was 'good' in school until I taught myself otherwise. Your addition of the textbook quote absolutely shocked me, and I think it just goes to show how much farther we as a society must go in order to bridge inequality and eliminate racism.
ReplyDeleteAlly, I thought your example of Malcom X and MLK was great- it is something that I believe most of us can relate to. I wonder why we were taught to think of Malcom X as a "villain"? Although his approaches were more radical than others, they were effective.
ReplyDeleteReading through Baldwin’s pieces, his idea of reputation being really essential really stood out to me. In the clip from “I Am Not Your Negroe”, he discusses how the future of the country is entirely up to the Americsn public and their actions. The term “nigger”, which developed into a hateful term was created by the negative opinions of the American public at the time. The views of the primarily white population shaped the future of not only this word, but the environment in which all races exist, which further defined actions of all people. For example, in "Sonny's Blues" this is shown on page 7 when his mother is explaining how his uncle died. He explained how his father had witnessed his death and was greatly impacted him. She states “Your Daddy never did really get right again. Til the day he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.” This emphasizes the idea that a single event shapes an entire future. He reacted by seeing the actions of one white person to make judgements about an entire race, and every white man he saw after that he saw in this new light. This idea also is weaved throughout his piece “Going to Meet the Man”, where Jesse experiences racism through his family. The ideas of the generations above him influenced him to the point that it shaped his ideas through what he was taught as a child rather than through his own experiences. He saw the black people around him, as Emma explained as animals. He did not seem them as civilized, because he was taught to think of them differently, which shaped not only his thinking but his actions which go on to shape not only his future but America’s as well.
ReplyDeleteAnother time in the short story about Sonny where this theme was present was when Sonny described the boy from his block. He did not really know him, but hated him based on his reputation. He states “He’d been Sonny’s friend. He’d never been mine [friend]...anyway, I’d never liked him.” He then goes on to judge him based on looks. He says “I couldn’t stand the way he looked at me...partly like a cunning child.” Although he is drawing from his own experience in this case, he is making judgements based on looks alone rather than really knowing him.
DeleteJames Baldwin’s voice is that of an entire segment of the population, which he ironically points out in his works, can be interchangeably replaced for the voice of yet another group. Regardless of which part of the population is under scrutiny, the principle is the same – a single story skews and morphs perception. This is the danger of the single story – we, collectively, become so mesmerized by the tunnel vision of our single story that eventually, no matter how untrue, unrealistic, or unfair the narrative, we buy into it with unquestioning ownership.
ReplyDeleteBaldwin demonstrates this artfully in “Going to Meet the Man.” On the one hand, there is Jesse, who is the embodiment of this cautionary tale. Jesse’s behavior is immoral and corrupt, but Jesse considers himself a guardian: “Protecting white people from the niggers and the niggers from themselves.” Even though Jesse denigrates blacks as “no better than animals,” Jesse’s single story allows him to take the moral high ground as a “God-fearing man.” Not to put too fine a point on the danger of the single story, and I believe in an attempt to explore the concept more fully, Baldwin introduces the ten-year-old boy, who calls Jesse “white man” with apparent disdain. Clearly, the burden inherent in the single story is not just carried by one segment of the population alone.
Baldwin stretches the reader to consider an even more insidious consequence of the single story in “Sonny’s Blues.” “Sonny’s Blues” is heavy in part because Baldwin is dealing many dark issues, not the least of which is drug abuse. However, Baldwin creates a multifaceted character in Sonny to show how deeply the single story can obscure the totality of the truth. The single story can bend family ties, arguably the strongest bonds, but once you see what you “never really noticed … before” the stronghold of the single story is broken. Otherwise, it looms like “that troubled stretch above us, longer than the sky.”
I thought it was interesting how you explained the effects of the single story on relationships. Even someone that you are close with can misinterpret who you are, rather choosing to label you with closed-minded assumptions.
DeleteJill
Hmmmm, interesting analysis. I never really though of Baldwin trying to touch on any irony and how that voices are interchangeable
DeleteAs Kristy and Jessica said, I had never heard of James Baldwin before reading these stories. I strongly appreciate his courage, passion, ideas, and stories. The fact that I have gone through so many years of history classes without hearing of someone as influential as James Baldwin goes to show how much more there is to learn about other cultures, races, religions, and many other aspects of life as well. I loved what Audrey mentioned in her blog saying, Americans have a “fear of discomfort”. She spoke about this in terms of Americans not wanting to acknowledge their history. However, it also reminded me of our conversation in class about how we tend to shy away from controversial or sensitive subjects. James Baldwin does the exact opposite of that. Baldwin uses his courage to stand up for other people who are facing similar racial injustice and oppression. This was especially evident in the documentary, “I Am Not Your Negro”.
ReplyDeleteI think “Sonny’s Blues” is a good example of the danger of a single story. The narrator always thought of his brother as a drug-addict and nothing else. By going to the jazz club he was able to see a different side of Sonny that he couldn’t before. He met people who respected his brother and also saw how much emotion and effort Sonny put into his music. The narrator says, “Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And Sonny went all the way back…[and] began to make it his. It was very beautiful because it wasn’t hurried and it was no longer a lament” (46). Seeing a new side of Sonny was a very important step in their relationship. Like Baldwin said in the documentary, “white people did not go back to his kitchen in Harlem and see what his life was really like.” Perspective is key to many aspects of life, especially when trying to understand a person/people who you don’t know well. The danger of a single story also connect very well to “Going to Meet the Man”. In this story we learn about how beliefs and assumptions of groups of people can be passed down over generations. I think this is also very evident today in terms of political and social beliefs. It is upsetting to me that we are unable to come up with our own opinions to a certain extent because our minds are so clouded by the opinions of others. This can be seen in the case of Jesse when his father pressures him into not associating with black kids. Not associating with people of another race is even more damaging because it prevented Jesse from coming up with an opinion on his own. Since he is never given the opportunity to talk to people like Otis, his views will never change.
I really like how you highlight that we've never talked about James Baldwin in any of our history classes. Before this I hadn't heard of him either, which is a real tragedy. To think of the effect that the knowledge of his work would've had on me in previous discussions is very shocking. In my US history class last year we even spent a long amount of time talking about MLK Jr. and Malcolm X but never James Baldwin.
DeleteI love your point about the prevention of him talking to Otis changed his entire opinion of a certain race. It's unfortunate that a lack of communication can deprive us, and we make assumptions about a person, group, race, gender, etc. Like in "Sonny's Blues", the narrator understands the importance of him writing out to his younger brother after he realizes how passionate his brother was about music. Communication brought the two brothers closer and made the narrator realize assumptions about Sonny were wrong.
DeleteIt is shameful that James Baldwin is a figure that I’ve never heard about in all of my years of schooling. It was his controversial ideas that kept him from being discussed, the ideas that made him such a powerful thinker. I have been inspired by his ideas after watching the documentary and reading some of his pieces of writing, having a more in depth understanding of the issues at hand coming from an uncensored source. James Baldwin is important because he did not shy away from the uncomfortable, but rather explored all that encompassed it. People fear the truth, which is why Baldwin’s ideas were rejected. One part of the documentary that really stood out to me was when it was showing the different ways black people were allowed to be displayed in film. They were either portrayed demeaningly, or as a character reassuring white people that black people aren’t a threat. Sidney Poitier was used as an example several times, firstly to show how black men were never labeled as sex symbols because that would be corrupting the white woman’s way of thinking, encouraging ideas of interracial relationships. The other was to make the issue of segregation seem like it could be solved over a cup of tea, ignoring the blatant reasoning for it all. The white man was always the hero in the end, which angered many black people. Baldwin touches on this idea of the black man being angry at the white man who mistreats him. When one man abuses him, he believes that all white people will do the same. Baldwin discusses how when he was a child, he had a white woman as a teacher who taught him things that he never thought possible of learning. Since this woman had a positive influence on his life, he knew that not all white people were malicious creatures, as in people aren’t born with hatred, it is how they grow up that influences the way they think. This relates to the father in “Sonny’s Blues” who believed every white man was the murderer of his brother. Their mother never wanted her children to know about this because she didn’t want them to be spiteful. She wanted her children to always be there for one another because family is what unites them. Baldwin was able to look at things from multiple perspectives, believing that anger wasn’t going to bring equality, but rather empathy.
ReplyDelete“Going to Meet the Man” is a story that needed to be told. Baldwin tells the story from a white officers point of view, focusing in on how he wants to have sex with a young black girl to “spice things up,” but then goes on to describe his absolute hatred towards the “filthy animals” that are black men who have lived in this country too long to not be civilized. The man is unaware of this paradox, unable to see how he is the true filthy animal. He abuses innocent black men protesting for their freedom and rapes black woman whenever he gets bored of his wife. The white man does this again when he throws the “N” word around without hesitation, but the moment the little black boy calls him a “white man” he is filled with rage and feels obligated to defend his superiority. He never looked at black people as actual people, only violators of the Bible. Baldwin was able to write from someone’s point of view completely the opposite of his to effectively show that he understands the root of the problem and knows what has to be done to bring about justice, unafraid of speaking the truth.
I agree with your point that people feared the truth, and that is why they rejected his ideas. I think that is why what he did is so notable, because he did not give up and succumb to the hate that was projected towards him. Instead, he wanted to spread his truth to all, and make them realize that hate+hate does not equal peace
Deletei think your argument is very strong and all your quotes and parts from the stories that you choose really strengthened your argument which was really good. I like how you mentioned that Baldwin was able to look at things from multiple different perspectives
DeleteDelia, I think your analysis in your second paragraph is really strong. The mention of paradox is a very important one, especially in these pieces of writing.
DeleteJames Baldwin is one of the most recognized figures in history for trying to end discrimination against African American people. He focused on the fact that people could not see past their own hate, and if they did, they would see the world as an entirely different place. This was a theme that I focused on throughout the three pieces. The documentary that we watched in class was the first real time I had learned about James Baldwin, and how he approached the civil rights movement. His words were kinder than Malcom X’s, and more activating than Martin Luther King jr’s, but he followed the same principles. What really stood out to me in the documentary was when he was on a talk show, and was having a conversation with a white professor. What he was trying to get the white professor to see, is that black people do not want to be seen as greater than white people. They all want to appear equal, but they have to fight harder for it, because many white people are not even willing to give them a chance. Sonny’s Blues was a different kind of a story in the fact that racism was not the main plot line, but it was in the background, and it made a huge difference for the characters to be black, rather than white. The narrator says that “These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities." (104) Even though it is not explicitly stated, he is implying that because these young students that he is teaching are African Americans, they are not getting half the opportunities that the white children are getting handed to them. The narrator goes on to explain that even though Sonny eventually finds his way out of the dark place, and joins the navy, “Those who got out always left something of themselves behind, as some animals amputate a leg and leave it in the trap." (112) Here he is talking about how even though Sonny and him ended up fine, there is always a piece of them missing from their childhood. I took this to mean their freedom to embrace who they are without be judged for being black. The final story, “Going to meet the man” was a very disturbing story about a young boy witnessing a man being killed for something that he presumably didn't do. One quote the made me really think was “He want death to come quickly. They wanted to make death wait: and it was they who held death, now, on a leash which they lengthened little by little.”(7) It is such a horrible thought, and Baldwin is implying that African Americans are made out to look bad. Jesse did not know what the man had done, but he just assumed it was bad. James Baldwin made it his mission to educate people about integration, and the reality of the lives of black americans.
ReplyDeleteGrace, I feel like you really hit the nail on the head with: "Sonny’s Blues was a different kind of a story in the fact that racism was not the main plot line, but it was in the background, and it made a huge difference for the characters to be black, rather than white." 🙌🙌
DeleteThe part with the professor stood out to me as well. He was saying accusatorially that Baldwin was creating this separation of blacks and white by making it an issue of color in how he speaks. Baldwin rebutted his point by saying he has not created this issue in America, it is factually about color, not himself, because when he left the country he didn't experience the same hatred.
DeleteI always knew Baldwin’s work was heavy, before I even knew really who he was. James Baldwin is blunt, he won’t sugarcoat things. He is not afraid to touch on taboo topics such as rape, pedophilia, police violence, homosexuality, and abuse. He is everything America fears. He is Black, educated, unapologetic, and he tells it how it is.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many issues that Baldwin explores in these two pieces as well as the documentary that could be discussed, that it’s hard to choose just one. But for the purpose of this assignment, one that I feel like is relevant and extremely important today is the evolution of racism that Baldwin discusses. He makes note of how racism has not / does not go away, but rather takes new forms as time goes on. I hope that I can take bits and pieces from each of the three sources, and examine how the messages they display are ingrained in society today.
Starting off with “Going to Meet the Man”. This read was most definitely the heaviest out of all three of the sources we examined. Honestly -- like many of you had said, I too felt physically uncomfortable reading this piece. And also like many of you had said, I feel this was a large part of the point Baldwin was trying to make. One thing that stuck out to me in the story, and I could easily see the development of in today's society was the nostalgia that the character Jesse felt in regards to racism and ‘the good old days’. At one point, Jesse notes how the jokes at the expense of Black people have decreased over time: “It was only that he missed the ease of the former times”. When I read this, I scoffed a little bit. Because it’s something that I, and probably most of you see all the time now-a-days. People in this country are genuinely upset that they cannot be openly racist without consequences, and somehow feel inconvenienced by that. Obviously, the narrator being a police officer wasn’t a choice made without intent. Baldwin is making a point as to how people in positions of state mandated authority uphold the systems that discriminated against POC, and specifically Black people. Black people today are 3x more likely to be killed than a white person is when all the circumstances are the same except for obviously their race.
The N-word and other racial slurs and obscenities occur repeatedly in both narration and dialogue. Baldwin shows how this word was used to dehumanize and oppress Black people in this country. There is a lot of debate on the N word today, and I think this story is a great reminder of why it will NEVER be ok for White people and NBPOC (non-Black people of color) to use this word.
The documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” has many powerful lines and concepts it explores. One of which is the ever present power structure that exists within the racial divides of this country, and the negative effects it has. One really important line I took note of from this documentary was, “but what one does realize is that when you try to stand up and look the world in the face like you had a right to be here, you have attacked the entire power structure of the western world.” Sometimes it's scary to think about how racism is so embedded in American society, that if you were to question it or take it away, you're putting everything you know to be true at risk. I think another quote from the documentary that connects to this concept is “what white people have to do, is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a ****** in the first place, because I'm not a ******, I'm a man, but if you think I'm a ******, it means you need it.”
DeleteI also found the following line to be very powerful: “I'm terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really don't think I'm human. I base this on their conduct, not on what they say. And this means that they have become, in themselves, moral monsters”. All my life I have been someone who is politically active, my parents were activists themselves and it's the way me and my siblings were all raised. But there’s something very different and distinct about the past couple years that I’ve been seeing and I think people have been seeing nationally. People are beginning to allow their prejudices to embolden them, and I’m seeing less of microaggressions and more of borderline attacks and blatant discrimination every day. Sometimes, I get really emotional and upset. When I read about an unarmed Black boy getting shot by a white cop and look at the comments below they can be so vile and low/decrading that I can no longer read them. It makes me question where any sense of moral responsibility in this country has gone, if there was any at all in the first place.
When reading Sonny’s Place by James Baldwin, I wondered if it ever occurred to him how it could be problematic for his message. Though a great piece, I feel like it could very easily fall into the trap of “the single story” complex. He was very raw regarding drug problems in the Black community as he saw it, and crime and poverty in Harlem. I first kind of felt like: Why would Baldwin do this to us? We see enough depictions of Black people with drugs and prison and crime and dropouts in the media already. But I think it’s important for Baldwin to write what he feels, and what he sees. The truth is, there are a lot of white communities with crime and drug and poverty issues. And there are a lot of Black communities with the same issues, Harlem in a lot of ways being one of them. We can’t be afraid that people will misinterpret an important message and twist it, even though they might. Someone who is very ignorant could just see this story as proving their point, that Black people are thugs and criminals and eventually go to Prison. But Baldwin doesn’t let that stop him from writing it. In other words, I guess you can’t let the fear of the single story get in the way of writing your story. History is clearly important to James Baldwin who said, “not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it has been faced. History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise we literally are criminals.”
I agree with your interpretation of Baldwin that is is very blunt and he says what he really thinks instead of worrying what others think or being uncomfortable.
DeleteNadia, your comment shows a lot of deep thinking and analysis on all of the pieces. I like how your interpretation related the stories and the documentary to the present day. I agree with your point about the N-Word and how Baldwin reinforces how disrespectful it is for white people to say it. Similarly, the way you compared Jesse to people today was also very interesting.
DeleteThe issue of racism in America’s past was quite notorious for its violence and severity as depicted in the Baldwin’s pieces as well as other noteworthy works. However, one aspect that distinguishes Baldwin’s work is his utter bluntness in his tone, which highlights his message in each dissertation. Through the discussion of race in America his three works, I found that separation of the races to be an immense factor in it.
ReplyDeleteAs Baldwin mentioned in the documentary I Am Not Your Negro, “the future it is entirely up to the American people whether or not they are going to face and deal and embrace this stranger.. And to decide why to have a n***** in the first place”. Here Baldwin emphasizes the importance of all Americans, and not just specific populations, to come together and embrace the African American race, and ponder why there was a distinction to begin with. In America, there was a great separation between the races, and as a result, the majority of the white population never felt sympathy for the African population. What Baldwin does through his works is brutally portray the truth in order to demonstrate the struggles of the African race to the distanced white folk. For instance, Baldwin uses Sonny’s Blues to demonstrate the distance between the Harlem population, composed of almost all African Americans, and the rest of the world. The narrator in the story states, “those who got out always left something of themselves behind, as some animals amputate a leg and leave it in the trap”(24). The jarring image of an animal sacrificing a limb to leave a “trap” illustrates how rough the community was as well as the difficulty of an African individual to escape the trap. Once again, Baldwin shows the great divide between the African population and white population of America. Furthermore, what Baldwin does through the character of Sonny is further disprove the single story the seperated white population is fixated on. In the story, Sonny battles various addictions and is sent to jail, which is exactly what the typical white person at this time views an African individual as: helpless and needy. However, Baldwin shows that not even his own brother knows him well, as he is just a human with a passion for music and isn’t defined by addiction. By showing the other side to Sonny, the author demonstrates how every African America has their own story and is not simply just defined by their race. Similarly, in “Going to Meet the Man”, the protagonist Jesse has only few moments in which he interacts with African Americans outside of crime, and as a result, he forms a single notion that all African American people are malevolent. Baldwin attempts to once against demonstrate the great division between the races by using Jesse’s fixated perception.
Overall it is quite evident that separation between the races play a major role in racism, and Baldwin does an exceptional job at highlighting that aspect through the works.
I liked your thoughts on "Sonny's Blues." I struggled to understand how this story was connected to racism like the other sources we looked at, but after reading your comment it becomes apparent that it was similar to the concept of the single story and that Sonny was shouldn't have been defined by the single story of his addiction.
DeleteIn all three stories, “I Am Not Your Negro”, “Sonny’s Blues” and “Going to Meet the Man” Baldwin discusses public image of black people both in the media and in everyday life. Both stories we read and the movie we watched, truly proved we need his voice today more than ever. The differences between the events of the civil rights movement in the past, along with negative events like men screaming “white power” at black people walking into school, are eerily similar to events today like Charlottesville. Throughout many parts of the movie Baldwin discusses the idea of the image of black people in movies and in the public eye, which I believe to be a truly complex issue. There are clips of Baldwin himself on talk shows, showing how uncomfortable people are (the host, etc.) with his blunt statements about the actual conditions black people were living in and how they felt during this time. He shows the negative depictions of black people in movies like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the controversy included in movies such as “The Defiant Ones” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”. You can see how real people were simply used as a plot device and weren’t fully developed characters. Thinking about these movies, I considered more recent movies that have been considered controversial. One movie that immediately came to mind was “Django Unchained”. The story has been considered to be too graphic and too controversial for many people. This movie follows the story of a slave who is freed by a hitman who is after three slave owners. The story is powerful and is graphic as many people say it is, it includes often avoided scenes like slaves who are deemed not good enough being chewed up by dogs.
ReplyDeleteThis directly connects to “Going to Meet the Man”, it was a much more graphic story compared to “Sonny’s Blues” and other stories we’ve looked at previously in school. “Going to Meet the Man” tells the story of a police man, Jesse, lying in bed trying to sleep but who can’t keep reoccurring thoughts out of his head. Even though he claims that he is a god-fearing man, he is not afraid of adultery depicting how ““sometimes...he knew that he wanted a little more spice than [his wife] could give him and he would drive yonder and pick up a black piece or arrest her” (1). He also isn’t afraid to harm and mistreat those around him, he distinctly remembers torturing the people in his custody, “puting the prod to [a man in police custody] and jerked some more and he kind of screamed-but he didn’t have much voice left… [Jesse] put it to him again, under his arms, and he just rolled around on the floor and blood started coming from his mouth” (3). These begin the story, with a less graphic introduction (compared to what comes later) to the life that Jesse lives, but he later unveils an event that is part of how he became this way. When you look at Jesse you see the way that people manage to look at people of color, as specs of dirt under their shoes. Baldwin is unafraid to depict the negative image that many people have, shoving the truth in people’s faces. Even in "Sonny's Blues" when he's talking about living in Harlem, he describes how the "streets hadn't changed, though housing projects jutted up out of them now like rocks in the middle of a boiling sea" (24). He connects this lifestyle to the misunderstanding of people's struggles during this time. Impoverished people were forced to live in places like Harlem even though according to one of the characters Harlem "ain't no safe place for kids, nor nobody" (27). In this piece Baldwin less focuses on public opinion and the media's depiction of black people but insead internal struggles.
Throughout the documentary and the two short stories, discrimination acted as a common thread between all three pieces. It was very relieving to see how Baldwin didn’t shy away from the truth and brought up controversial ideas that the public were too uncomfortable to talk about. As many of my classmates have stated, I have never heard of James Baldwin and his stories before this, and I think that shouldn’t be the case. We have been learning about history for so many years and I think this just goes to show how much more there is to learn about the hard topics. In our school systems I feel like sometimes we also shy away from the uncomfortable topics like race and discrimination because we are ashamed. It is important to learn about our past and what took place in other cultures so we can learn from our mistakes and move forward.
ReplyDeleteIn Baldwin’s “Sonny Blues”, he really went into depth about the serious issues and shows the danger of a single story and how it can have a major effect on someone’s life. This story really drew truth to the idea how one event can ultimately change someone’s life for ever and shape who they become. This story shows death and abuse and how a person might carry that with them forever. This story also relayed how race played a role because every time Sonny saw a while man he always thought that could be the one who killed his uncle. This was interesting to me because we are all used to hearing about the racial profiling of the black community in the past.
I really like how you talked about how Baldwin sheds light on the "hard topics" that many of us have not really learned because people tend not to talk about them due to it being "uncomfortable" or shameful.
DeleteI agree with you that, it was very relieving to see how Baldwin didn’t shy away from the truth. No matter the topic, he was unafraid to shed light on the negative aspects of life that many people ignore. We tend to turn away when we see people hurting or when people are being attacked.
DeleteThe two stories written by James Baldwin, both show the perspectives of two very different people - from different backgrounds to different views on other ethnicities. People who are privileged are capable of living out a life with far more options and possibilities.
ReplyDeleteIn “Sonny’s Blues” although the short story focuses on brotherly love and the importance of communication, the streets of Harlem was largely blamed by the narrator for Sonny ending up in jail. The kids from the streets of Harlem were described, “smothering in these houses, came down into the streets for light and air and found themselves encircled by disaster” (14). Although he believes he “escaped” the trap of inevitably by using drugs to cope with the suffering, he has not physically escaped the neighborhood in which his kids would grow up where, “the same things happen, they’ll have the same to remember” (25). The guilt the narrator feels having to live in a housing project with the kids that are surrounded by the same terrible problems that led his brother to falling into an addiction; He might have escaped the trap, but his kids haven't yet. Sonny’s relationship with his father wasn’t as strong as Jesse was with his father, “He [Sonny’s father] and Sonny hadn’t ever got on too well” (26). Due to them being so similar they would bump heads frequently, so their relationship was very static. Both Sonny and his older brother are in a single side story perspective where they can only see their own goals and not the other side. Another disadvantage that Sonny had was his father and mother died and when he was jailed, his brother never decided to write to him. Being distraught and most likely terrified Sonny explains that he left Harlem to, “...get away from the drugs… When I came back nothing had changed” (43). Which is similar to what James Baldwin explains in an interview in the movie “I am not your Negro”, when he left to France with little to no change to escape the terrible problems in America holding him back from writing. Though he was capable of writing successfully, the country that he left was still the same as when he left.
With “Going to Meet the Man”, a white police officer is so filled with hate towards the African American population that it keeps him up at night. Even as a boy, he had a lot of privileges that could have been overlooked at the time but in comparison to both of the stories, they are very distinct. The biggest one being that he had parents who taught him the hatred towards the black, the dad even going out of his way to teach him to despise his friend, “..Just want to make sure that Otis don’t do nothing… you tell him what your Daddy said” (1756). His father was the sheriff of his town before he grew up to fill his shoes. Being a sheriff allowed Jesse to look up to him as a role model, and the advantage of having someone at power to protect him. The influence they had on him made such an impact on how Jesse was present time, “These men [officers] were his models… they had taught him what it means to be a man” (1754).
People who are privileged are capable of escaping a lot of problems compared to those who are less privileged. No matter how hard someone who is less privileged tries, someone was almost bound to fall into the “trap”. Unlike Jesse however, where his only problem that kept him awake was just his hatred towards African Americans.
i liked your discussion on the privilege that some people had over others. i didn't really think of using that word but I think it fits very well!
DeleteOne of the complex issues Baldwin examined in his discussion of race in America is the fact that people are not so different, no matter your race. Through his discussion of Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, he discusses their experiences and struggles. Even today, tens of years later, people are still fighting for rights when everyone is truly equal. There have been many progressions in our world today and in Sonny’s Blues, Baldwin illustrates a moment when people realize and celebrate a clarity that is uncovered. “As the singing filled the air the watching, listening faces underwent a change, the eyes focusing on something within; the music seemed to soothe a poison out of them; and time seemed, nearly, to fall away from the sullen, belligerent, battered faces, as though they were fleeing back to their first condition, while dreaming of their life” (39). The music brings lights to the darkness that everyone was in and people have a new thought and realization on what is happening in their society. In the short story “Going to Meet the Man, Baldwin illustrates the racism in American society with a story about a young child Jesse and his friend Otis who is black. They were friends with each other until Jesse’s parents told him that he couldn’t be friends with Otis anymore, yet Jesse was too young and naive to understand. Eventually, Jesse begins to change with evidence from when describing the lynchings of black men, he says that he feels close to a very peculiar, particular joy”. Jesse and Otis were friends when they were younger and nothing changed between them wouldn’t have kept them friends in the long run. However, with the society and the culture that they were surrounded by, Jesse who was once innocent, was swayed by the public and fell into their trap.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say "people are still fighting for rights when everyone is truly equal", I thought that was really striking. Even though every single person on this earth are equal to another, we are not all given equal rights. People are not treated fairly, there is still discrimination today that there was in the past, whether it be due to a person's race, sex, religion or any other characteristics.
DeleteOftentimes, the arts can either give someone a sense of comfort or divide people even further. This was evident in the 1940s-1960s (and even today), where African American people were constantly misrepresented in media. The documentary demonstrated this concept by using clips of various films. While some directors thought they were doing justice for African American people, such as with “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and black characters sacrificing themselves for their white co-stars, they were unwittingly doing the opposite. Instead, they developed a single perception of African American people. Either they were shown as a one-dimensional, sacrificial hero, like Sidney Poitier in “The Defiant Ones”, or they were stereotypical, poor, minor characters, mostly used for ridicule. This highlights the misrepresentation of African American citizens in the arts. While some filmmakers believe they are doing the right thing by making their African American characters heroic, they are still limiting what they can do. For example, while Sidney Poitier was seen as a “sex symbol” of his time, directors were almost afraid to let him do what white “sex symbols” did. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” depicts this, where, throughout the entire movie, Poitier does not kiss or show any affection to his co-star. The documentary additionally addresses how narrow our understanding is on racism. In several films, someone’s prejudice is quickly solved with a discussion. Once a white man learns about a black man’s life, he immediately loses his racist beliefs. Unfortunately, it is not that simple in real life.
ReplyDeleteOne can see that “Sonny’s Blues” uses the arts to narrate an individual’s story. He often mentions music to establish a setting, such as describing “the jukebox blasting away with something black and bouncy and I watched the barmaid as she danced” (p. 20). The story also contradicts how the arts are viewed in the documentary, instead using them as a source of hope. This applies to Sonny’s character, whose dream to be a jazz player acts as a distraction from a crueler reality. This can be shown on page 30, where he mentions, “‘‘I’m thinking about my future...I think about it all the time.’” Sonny’s music also impacted the narrator, where he stated “freedom lurked around us” and that “he could help us be free if we would listen” (p. 47.) Unfortunately, many white people did not understand this correlation between music and hope. “Going to Meet the Man” illustrates this, where Jesse says African American families “play that music like they don’t have a care in the world” (p. 1751.) His prejudiced beliefs also lead him to conclude “they had not been singing black folks to heaven, they had been singing white folks into hell” (p. 1754.)
-Jill
I really like your interpretation of the representation of black people in the media. I also thought a lot about the one-dimensional black characters that were shown in the documentary and I agree with your interpretation of characters like Sidney Poitier's in "The Defiant Ones."
DeleteJill, I like the points you highlighted about the lack of affection shown with the interracial couple in "Who's Coming to Dinner". It made me stop and think, even today interracial couples are less prevalent in media.
DeleteIn James Baldwin’s documentary, he discusses the fact that people aren’t so different from one another, even if they do have different ideals. We all want basic human rights, freedom, overall happy lives, etc. However Baldwin touches on the fact that when white people are fighting for their rights it is deemed heroic, but when black people are fighting for the same things they are ultimately shut down. He uses the quote “give me liberty or give me death as an example.” The quote embodies the values of our country, as it was used during the Revolutionary war to inspire change. However, when this same idea was fought for during the Civil Rights movement, black people were met with violence and hatred on behalf of the whites.
ReplyDeleteAnother important message touched upon in the documentary is that we are all more than just a single story. James Baldwin was more than what many people saw him as; a radical black man. He was an empowered and brave activist who was not afraid to speak his mind. However he was confined to a single story by many people. Similarly, in “Sonny’s Blues,” The Narrator starts off the story not seeing his younger brother, Sonny, as anything more than a highschool dropout, drug dealer, and junkie. He doesn’t acknowledge what Sonny actually wants with his life and sees his passion for music as nothing more than an annoyance. It’s not until The Narrator sees “Sonny (fill) the air with life, his life (47),” that he appreciates Sonny’s passion and views him beyond just his faults. Like many others, I also noticed how “Going to Meet the Man” shows Jesse beyond his single story. Baldwin begins to describe Jesse as a typical racist redneck but then adds more complexity to him. On one hand you know that Jesse is an awful human being, but on the other hand you feel bad for him because his horrific nature wasn’t something he was born with but something he was sadly taught. At one point a group of black people are singing for the man who was hung and Jesse’s father says “even when they’re sad they sound like they just about to go and tear off a piece (1756),” which makes a young Jesse “feel sick (1756)” about his black friend Otis. As a child, Jesse is influenced by his father’s bigotry which gives Jesse his ugly views on the world and those who don’t look like him.
I definitely agree with you on the ideal that people aren't so different at the core. Racism is a learned thing, and I think that was a big message Baldwin was trying to get across in Going to Meet the Man. Same goes for hate, as James Baldwin said whites hate out of fear, blacks hate out of anger.
DeleteAs Jessica and Kristy mentioned above, before watching “I am Not Your Negro” and reading the two short stories, I was only vaguely familiar with James Baldwin. I am glad I was introduced to him and that I had the pleasure of learning from pieces of his work. The documentary that we watched in class opened my eyes in many ways. However, one of Baldwin’s messages struck me harder than the rest. That message is that racial injustice is still a huge issue that is continuously swept under the rug. In the documentary Baldwin makes the remark that “not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it has been faced. History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.” The United States has a history of not owning up to the mistakes it has made in the past with regards to race. An example of this would be the teaching of slavery in schools- this lofty and heavy subject is often not covered in depth and the true horrors the slaves endured are kept from us. The United States is ashamed of its tainted history but, refuses to take action and learn from it. This way of avoidance will allow history to repeat itself.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man” I was reminded of the ongoing injustice African Americans face. Primarily with police brutality. Jesse, a small town sheriff reflects on the events of the morning with his wife. He reveals that the sheriffs specifically target black men, referring to them as “animals”. This story was written in the 60’s, almost 60 years ago and things have not changed. In the documentary, we see the faces of young African Americans who have been killed by white police officers. The most disturbing part of this discrimination is that the white offices continue to get away with it, each time they claim self defense and are never convicted.
Finally, in his short story “Sonny’s Blues”, Baldwin explores the relationship between two brother’s living in Harlem. Harlem is a traditionally a poorer African-American dominated city. Compared to the white neighborhoods, Harlem is lacking in opportunities. The narrator is reflecting on his childhood with his brother and thinking of the kids of the time, states “These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities” Baldwin uses this to show how the life of poverty around them can shape the rest of their life. I saw this with regards to race because often, governments fail to give the appropriate funding to predominantly African American towns. I also believed that Sonny’s addiction was intended to show that white Americans and African Americans and really those from any race, have to deal with the same struggles and emotions. The narrator in the story is saddened by the addiction his brother has to deal with. Brotherly, and family love, are themes that are universal, no matter the skin color, families will always be there for one and another.
I think you make a good point about the United States being "ashamed of its tainted history but [refusing] to take action and learn from it." When people discuss racism, oftentimes they will refer to things like segregation and slavery as things that happening long, long ago and try to distance themselves from ever having to do with them instead of owning up to our past and trying to heal. Although we have made progress in race relations in this country in some aspects, a major problem we still have is people denying the fact that we still have race problems.
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