Frederick Douglass

from slaveryinamerica.org

Link to a timeline of Douglass's life

Notes of a Native Son

Baldwin states “to think of him is to think of statistics, slumps, rapes, injustices, remote violence; it is confronted with an endless cataloguing of losses, gains, and skirmishes” (Baldwin 25). This was a powerful statement from Baldwin referring to African Americans in that time.  Baldwin gives off an indignant tone throughout his entire essay when he makes claims about how blacks/Negros is looked at through the eyes of Christians/Americans. I was really amazed when he compared blacks to “cancer” and “tuberculosis”, both diseases which take over your body and makes you weak (Baldwin 25). Which is a real good analogy in regards to discrimination and slavery because it is like a disease; a disease that painful and sucking the life right out of you.  

Baldwin also states this very interesting comment about the image of black people; “In our image of the Negro breathes the past we deny, not dead but living yet and powerful, the beast in our jungle of statistics. It is this which defeats us, which continues to defeat us” (Baldwin 28). Could the “beast” in this sentence be the white man or is he referring to all the torture and oppression blacks went through that people think is appropriate. According to the oxford dictionary, statistics means “an event or person regarded as no more than such a piece of data” (Oxford). Yet Baldwin states at the end of his comment “the beast in our jungle of statistics” (Baldwin 28). This is a very interesting phrase which I would like to look more into and understand who the beast is and what does Baldwin consider to be “statistic.

 Another I would like to briefly reflect on is even though blacks were thought of in a negative way back then, America has progress, but  I don’t believe that we “have walked together into that dazzling future when there will be no white or black” (Baldwin 45). Whether you like it or not there are people  still being thought of as injustices, statistics, losses, and gains. What Baldwin means when he states “the battle is elsewhere” is that once people get pass our colors, we still have to battle with “greed and guilt and bloodlust” (Baldwin 45).

en,wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_of_a_Native_Son

David Walker

Class was a little hectic towards the end today -- thankfully we still have Thursday to discuss David Walker's incredible pamphlet. As I suggested in class, the mostly mysterious young Walker was known as having been born to a free mother and enslaved father (remember: legally, the child follows the condition of the mother) in Wilmington, North Carolina in the Cape Fear region. Some people suggest that his father might have been Anthony Walker, who lived in that region and was a Nigerian Ibo named "Obato" or "Umboto," but Anthony Walker married a Native American woman who had been adopted by the Revolutionary War Major General Robert Howe. He is not listed as a legitimate child of Walker's marriage to this Native American, though he could have been born out of wedlock. On the other hand, Henry Highland Garnet's biography of Walker in his reprint of the "Appeal" claims that he was very dark and likely not of mixed race. It also suggests that his father died before he was born, and Anthony Walker lived for some time afterward.

Cape Fear Region of North Carolina, from Peter Hinks's edition of the "Appeal"

And as Jackie pointed out, the southeastern seaboard (the states on the coast) were notorious in past centuries for their swamplands. In particular, the Great Dismal Swamp was known as a hotbed for Maroon or fugitive activities -- the word Maroon coming from the American/Spanish word marronage, literally meaning a fugitive or runaway who lives on mountaintops (dry land in the swamps).

Great Dismal Swamp, Fugitive Slaves, Virginia -- by David Edward Cronin, 1888

And here's the title page of the 1856 novel Dred; a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe (the (much better) book that she wrote after Uncle Tom's Cabin:

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred; A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

I reference Stowe here to bring up the subject of this book. Dred takes place in the Carolinas around the Great Dismal Swamp and it describes the efforts of the son (Dred, possibly named for Dred Scott) of executed insurrectionist Denmark Vesey to continue his father's revolutionary legacy. Vesey was active in the early 1820s in Charleston where the site of his former home was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976. At the time, Vesey was Public Enemy #1, and he, like David Walker, was an active member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Charleston. This church was razed to the ground after the conspiracy was revealed -- in case you were wondering why Walker really hates snitches. Afterwards, a lot of free blacks in Charleston got as far away as possible.

You'll read about what happened to the slaves after an insurrection was discovered in Harriet Jacobs' narrative -- she lived in Edenton, North Carolina around this time. Basically their homes were ransacked, many of their possessions were stolen by white mobs, and sometimes their worship places were closed on account of their being places where uprisings could be plotted. David Walker fled from this oppression and likely traveled around for a few years, going south (likely to Savannah), west (he writes of the "west" at this time with familiarity), and ultimately north. He probably visited Richard Allen, the founder of the AME denomination -- which split from white Methodism on account of increasing efforts by white church leaders to control black churches -- in Philadelphia before settling in Boston.

What we do know is that by 1825 (according to the residence and tax rolls) Walker was living in Boston and had already started up a used clothes shop. Used clothes dealers, hairdressers, barbers, and bootblacks were actually middle class and could afford to live in racially mixed areas of the city at this point in time.

From Hinks's edition of the "Appeal"

Walker also made good professional decisions -- he was a Prince Hall Mason or African Lodge Mason. Although most of his powerful professional contacts were Black Baptists (also known as African Baptists), Walker remained devoted to the AME church -- an indicator that he had likely been exposed to it while in the South and remained loyal to his denomination.

Several quick points about the AME church and Walker's education in the South:
- The AME church frequently ran programs to educate free blacks and some slaves. These programs were sometimes called the Associates of Dr. Bray - a literacy promotion program that went on about this time.
- Walker was probably educated in one of these programs, though no records exist. Public schools in North Carolina in the early 1800s were closed to blacks.
- Walker probably associated with slaves in his early life -- free blacks in NC typically were socially grouped with slaves and sympathized with their condition.

In the reading for Thursday, you'll see a mention of a Camp Meeting in Charleston. Scholar Peter P. Hinks uses deductive logic on Walker's reminiscence of  the Camp Meeting, "for which [he] embarked on a Steam Boat at Charleston, and having been five or six hours on the water, we at last arrived at the place of hearing"(Walker 59) -- a large Camp Meeting (like a revival, but typically continuing over several days).

Hinks suggests that the event could not have occurred before 1816 or 1817 because there were no steamboats on the rivers up to that point. Hinks also notes a newspaper advertisement in the April 17th and April 21st issues of the Charleston City Gazette that mentions revivals at Goose Creek and Sullivan's Island. The trip to Sullivan's Island would have taken much less than five or six hours, so Hinks argues that Walker went to Goose Creek. This places him in Charleston in the early 1820s, around the time of the Vesey conspiracy. Evangelical Camp Meeting religion is quite relevant to Walker's appeal, as is the background of slave insurrection.

Title page of the third edition (1830), from UNC DocSouth

On Thursday, we'll discuss Walker's blend of evangelicalism and natural rights discourse as well as the fact that Walker, like Vesey, acknowledged that change might require a violent uprising or revolution. I am curious how all of you will situate Maria Stewart into this framework. Like Walker, she was born free (in Hartford, Connecticut), but she was soon orphaned and raised by a white minister and his family.

Phillis Wheatley

Wheatley was born in Africa, little more is known about her past. She was "brought" to Boston, Massachusetts on the schooner Phillis, from which she derived her first name. Her last name came from her Mistress and Master, Susanna Wheatley (1709-74) and Boston merchant John Wheatley (1703-78). Susanna Wheatley was ill and Phillis was initially taken in to be her personal maid. The Wheatleys also had two eighteen-year-old twins, Mary and Nathaniel, as well as several other slaves.

Mary Wheatley was Phillis's tutor in religion and language and under her guidance Phillis studied the "Bible, English (language and literature), Latin (language and literature), history, geograhy, and Christian principles" (3). Julian D. Mason, editor of the 1989 edition of Wheatley's poetry issued by the University of North Carolina Press writes that Wheatley gained "as good an education as (and probably a better one than) most Boston women had" at the time regardless of race (3).

Wheatley's spiritual influences are clearly evident in her work. Her literary influences are less so in the poems we read for today. She read a lot of the classics and imitated the neoclassicists popular in the late eighteenth century. She read Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Terrance, Pope, and Milton. Her political influences were equally important. Wheatley lived in Boston at the time of the revolution and had both loyalist (Tory) and revolutionary (Whig) friends and supporters in the city.

Wheatley's poetry was promoted by her mistress, Susanna, and she was behind the failed proposal to publish in the U.S. and the successful London proposal. Wheatley was allowed to ignore household tasks to write, her bedroom was heated and lighted at night (partly because of her frail health but also because she tended to dream her poetry and forget it upon waking. Wheatley went to sea and to London for her health in 1773 with Nathaniel.

In order to publish her book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in London, Wheatley had to remove revolutionary poems and anti-English poems in order to make her work appropriate for British audiences. Her poems were published by Archibald Bell, a religious bookseller in London, only after the authenticity of the work had been attested to by John Wheatley and other prominent Boston citizens. Bell contacted the Countess of Huntingdon, who was fascinated by the novelty of a black American woman poet and insisted that "'Phillis's picture'" appear in the frontispiece. According to one of Wheatley's letters, Huntingdon "'Questnd [Bell] much, whether [Wheatley] was Real without a deception" (7).

The Countess of Huntingdon

Many of Wheatley's poems are about death. This makes them elegies or poems written in the elegiac mode. Poems in this genre are typically both occasional -- inspired by an event or occasion -- and popular among a large number of readers at least for some time.

I'll leave you with a tribute to Wheatley by Jupiter Hammon, one of the earliest black writers. Wheatley was probably the first African American to publish a book of poetry, but she was not the first published African American writer. Generally scholars identify Briton Hammond (author of the lengthily titled:


A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man,--Servant to General Winslow, of Marshfield, in New-England; Who Returned to Boston, After Having Been Absent Almost Thirteen Years. Containing an Account of the Many Hardships He Underwent from the Time He Left His Master's House, in the Year 1747, to the Time of His Return to Boston.--How He Was Cast Away in the Capes of Florida;---The Horrid Cruelty and Inhuman Barbarity of the Indians in Murdering the Whole Ship's Crew;---The Manner of His Being Carry'd by Them Into Captivity. Also, an Account of His Being Confined Four Years and Seven Months in a Close Dungeon,---and the Remarkable Manner in Which He Met with His Good Old Master in London; Who Returned to New-England, a Passenger in the Same Ship.

Unlike Wheatley, Hammon's and Hammond's narratives were published in the United States. Here's Wheatley's American obituary, emphasizing the occasional nature of her American publications in various magazines, pamphlets, and other popular forums:

"'Phillis Peters formerly Phillis Wheatley aged 31, known to the literary world by her celebrated miscellaneous poems'" (quoted on 12).

Source: Wheatley, Phillis. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Ed. Julian D. Mason, Jr. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, second ed. 1988. Print.

Many Thousands Gone

As I read the essay, Many Thousands Gone by James Baldwin, one thing that really stood out to me is the comparison of Negros and cancer, and tuberculosis, “which must be checked, even though it cannot be cured.” This statement in particular surprised me because it shows just how much the black race is degraded. I got from the sentence that the Negro race could be bound by slavery or Jim Crow laws, but like tuberculosis the Negro race will not disappear. In the “social arena” the black race have been described as the lowest of low, animals, the bottom of the barrel, and Baldwin expresses that in the story. “He is a social and not a personal or a human problem;” simply explains how society sees the Negro race, as “statistics, slums, rapes, injustice... “ The Negro man and race have been historically thought of as lazy, useless, animal-like, wild, violent, etc. Since the days of slavery there have always been inferior characteristic linked to the Negro race. A Negro was not supposed to be successful In America, but to remain a servant, someone incapable of thinking for themselves. A Negro was thought of as uneducated and ignorant.

 This is still relevant in today’s society because the Negro, now known as black, man/race still have the same statistics and stereotypes associated to him/it. Statistics show that a black male is more likely to go to prison before he graduates with a degree from college. The stereotype linked to that is all black males are criminals. Statistics also shows that black males are still at the bottom of the workforce and have a harder time moving up in a business. The stereotype linked to that is blacks aren’t educated enough to earn a high salary, or smart enough to move up in the workplace. A black man is still discriminated against and thought of as inferior. As Baldwin states, “a negro is to be confronted with an endless cataloguing of losses, gains, skirmishes;” I believe this means a Negro man is supposed to be continuously faced with hardships, fights and live on an everlasting rollercoaster because of his race and the statistics/stereotypes that is associated with him and the race.

The link I found deals with some of the statistics and stereotypes of a black male.  http://www.lohud.com/article/20070204/NEWS01/702040354/Statistics-stereotypes-fuel-negative-perception-black-males-advocates-say

Response to "Many Thousands Gone"

Response to “Many Thousands Gone”

One thing that definitely caught my attention was the sentence we mentioned, briefly, in class: “Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom are dead, their places taken by a group of amazingly well-adjusted young men and women, almost as dark, but ferociously literate, well-dressed and scrubbed, who are never laughed at, who are not likely ever to set foot in a cotton or tobacco field or in any but the most modern of kitchens.” (pg. 27, Many Thousands Gone) This is what gave me some perspective as to the image of modernity and the progressive nature of the black community, at least according to Baldwin. On a more personal note, I have to say that his phrasing and attitude approaching it was particularly enjoyable. The idea that the slaves that had landed in the United States had faded away - not into oblivion, as he mentions that it is a “sentimental error...to believe that the past is dead” - and its essence has been reissued, reborn, so to speak, into this new, “ferociously literate” people, free and with more than just a few words to say, is something I can visualize very well. Given the right to freedom, they have taken the tools of the arts by storm, using literature, music, dance, imagery, colour, anything to get their message - their very strong message - across after what has veritably been generations of suppression of any such artistic, or creative urges. Baldwin’s clever acknowledgment that though they have come from Africa, it is not home to them any more. A part of them is from there, permanently marked on their skin - no one will deny that claim. However, they are now “almost as dark” - in other words, no longer as dark as they were. They have assimilated, gotten “well-dressed and scrubbed”, became a functional and significant part of the modern community. Baldwin recognizes that this is a part that comes into “[t]he making of an American” (pg. 29), where an American “adopts the vesture of [their] adopted land.” This is done with some disdain, but it is clear that he knows that it happens and that it has happened. After all, in making this acknowledgment, he identifies on multiple occasions as one of those that changes so dramatically that they now identify more with a Western perspective than any other. For he is one of these new people. He is one of the new, tempered, steaming machination, filled to the brim with literary impulses, a being who has discovered their eyes in a dark room, accidentally flipping on the light switch to find tales, stories, words, and finally, a pen and an oh-so-blank sheet of paper.

Jemima and Tom

     A non-fiction book, Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin and it was published in 1955 as his first non-fiction book. The book starts with sentence 

    “The story of the Negro in America is the story of America – or, more
    precisely, it is the story of Americans. It is not a very pretty story: the
    story of a people is never very pretty.  … One may say that the Negro
    in America does not really exist except in the darkness of our mind.” (24 - 25)

 My first job was that understand this paragraph. How come “The story of the Negro in America is the story of America”? I pick this sentence for In-class Exercise and asked the reason to my classmates. They said African Americans stated to move in the United States as slaves when white people establish the country. African Americans were regarded as a precious property not a human being to white people.  Although in 1862, Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery, after that, white people’s discriminations to African American still remain. This is really brief version of African American’s story but it helped me to understand the sentence, why African American’s story is the story of America and why it is not pretty at all.

 As I keep reading the essay, I got another problem, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom, they were unfamiliar to me, and I did not know what they mean. James Baldwin talked about typical idea of Aunt Jemima, such as big black woman, usually shown in the kitchen, cooking for white people. Uncle Tom is similar function as man. James Baldwin says, ‘‘There was no one more forbearing than Aunt Jemima, no one stronger or more pious or more loyal or more wise’’(28) Uncle Tom is ‘‘trustworthy and sexless.’’(28) Baldwin says those two quotes are the public images of African American. The fact is Aunt Jemima is faithless, vicious, and immoral; Uncle Tom is ‘‘violent, crafty, and sullen, a menace to any white woman who passed by.’’(28) 

  According to the essay, it is their surface identity that most white people want to believe. Since white people wanted peace, white people wanted to believe in their artificial creation. James Baldwin stated that Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom was people’s creation and a device for “we” who hope peace.

"Many Thousands Gone"

After reading James Baldwin’s essay, “Many Thousands Gone,” I am particularly interested in the idea he asserts of the Negro in America being hidden in the darkness of American society. Baldwin passionately and angrily asserts that the “ story of Negro in America is the story of America,” a story that Americans are not willing to hear; as a result the Negro man and his story are hidden and “he is a series of shadows”

I responded most to the motif of darkness and shadows to depict the way in which the Negro is hidden and separate from American society. “One may say that the Negro in America does not really exist except in the darkness of our minds,” (p.24) is one of Baldwin’s boldest assertions in the essay. He says this in order to illuminate the idea that America is ignorant to a huge group of people and a huge part of our collective American history. Baldwin supports this argument by addressing the “new” generation of “ amazingly well-adjusted young men and women” (p. 27) in America and the disconnect from their “cotton or tobacco field,” (p. 27).

What perhaps infuriates Baldwin the most in this essay is “our dehumanization of the Negro,” (p. 25) because he believes that by that wiping away one group or history it leads to the “ loss of our own identity,” (25). Because of the “darkness” and “shadows” cast by society the Negro in America is stripped of their history and identity thus causing an incomplete American history.

Baldwin believes that this idea of the unidentified Negro American is exemplified in Richard Wright’s character, Bigger in Native Son. As the protagonist of the novel Baldwin sees flaws in the way Bigger’s perspective and voice are practically non-existent. In this way Baldwin’s argument is somewhat relevant in the sense that no matter the minority group or community people still fight against the norm to have their perspectives voiced and heard.

Confinements

By: Natalia Fonseca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp4PbwqNdwo

The Merriam Webster dictionary has many definitions for what the word “arena” constitutes. It can be “an enclosed area used for public entertainment, a place or situation for controversy, or a sphere of interest, activity, or competition”. It seems that all three definitions are valid. We can relate Baldwin’s claim that in a sense, the Negro is a purpose of public entertainment, but not that of recreation and fun. It is a form of dark entertainment where control and coerced social image are the protagonist, and at the slightest mist of rebel, the audience is shaken out of its seats. It is entertainment that morphs into a daily purpose of social life, always vigilant to maintain everything within the lines. This ward keeps white American minds occupied and alert. It is clearly a situation of controversy, where talking about the Negro is mentioning a shameful, but indeed undeniable and form-shaping component of American history. It is a sphere of interest, activity and competition due to its palpable and constant nature. Baldwin states on page 25, “It must be checked, even though it cannot be cured” is an unexpected; yet exact metaphor to the mentality of the White American. A cancer is a burden, and nevertheless, the mystery of the body destroying itself from within, just like American society.

According to Baldwin on page 40, “Native Son finds itself at length so trapped by the American image of Negro life and by the American necessity to find the ray of hope that it cannot pursue its own implications”. Baldwin argues that the limitations of Native Son to portray the Negro in its full reality are due to the attachment to the persistent social image constructed by the white Americans. This is an image where no speck of Negro culture, ranging from his music, vernacular, food, customs, can constitute this framework. If it where to make its way, it would eternally collapse the collectiveness of the white American “treasure”.  It seems that Wright cannot conduct his way out of this “enclosed area”, and must therefore adapt the Negro to their guidelines in order to redeem him. Bigger Thomas is confined to the labels of “herald of disaster”, an imminent sign of danger. Baldwin argues that instead, he should be given, along with his fellow troopers, the right to claim a grudge that can be fairly held.  

The Negro is a dark construction embedded in the white masses. He is not thought of in a profound sentiment, in the analytical aspect of what constitutes a person. Instead, all he is referred to are numbers that are overrepresented to induce fear towards him, and to repel him from the rectangles of society that have been tightly riveted.

Baldwin expressed the sentiment of numbering through particular metaphors. As mentioned before, the comparison to a cancer is very accurate. Baldwin points out on page 26 another interesting contradiction, “Today, to be sure, we know that the Negro is not biologically or mentally inferior…” He continues, “…truth that can be easily explained or even defended by the social sciences. Yet, in our most recent war, his blood was segregated as was, for the most part, his person.” In society, people live and die for the tangible facts; it seems to be the definer of life itself, what exists and what doesn’t. But at the end, and considering situations like this, where it is known what is true, that the Negro is not a stereotype or a statistic, people always choose to believe what they want to believe in. They choose to outcast him, because the facts are rebellious.

It has been, not handed, but coerced in him, the guidelines of a conduct. The social pattern, which must be respected for the selfish purpose of chaos avoidance, for the conformity and triumph of a race, considered superior by itself. White Americans have defined, without consulting, what an American is. Baldwin states on page 29, “The making of an American begins at that point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.” It seems to be that society revolves around either fitting in or going home. But for the Negro there is no other home, he has been cursed with an estranged land, far away from his “jungles” that years ago lost their home-ness. This can be observed in the efforts of the American Colonization Society to reincorporate him, when denied of citizenship rights in the US, to his motherland. Within the range of adaptation issues, he has bloody confrontations with the native Africans, sending yet another clear sign of rejection. Back to the land where he can call it more of a home, he is barricaded with no options, but to dispose the chants of his culture and instead, quietly cherish what he truly is while pretending a blank face. 

I also came to notice Baldwin’s interesting word choice in one particular phrase. On page 32, Baldwin writes, “…it was one of the last of those angry productions, encountered in the late twenties and all throughout the thirties, dealing with the inequities of the social structure of America.” The word “those” gives the phrase a sense of mockery and distance, as if “those angry productions” that abounded almost two decades, were like city lights, there to illuminate the road but everybody taking them for granted. It would have sounded much more imposing if he would have replaced those for the, giving those productions more authority. Especially considering the density of the 20’s and 30’s, shifting from the loudest roar of society to the Great Depression. They were very paradoxical times for the Negro. Life became harder, yet, cultural expression through the Harlem Renaissance gave way to the increased recognition of talent such as in the case of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday. Nevertheless, Baldwin always has a purpose.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arena

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance#Musicians.2FComposers

http://mtungsten.freeservers.com/

Evan Markley

E 314V

                James Baldwin advocates for an alternate understanding of the societal representations of racial tension in America after 1950.  When he quotes, “The battle is elsewhere,” in his essay Notes of a Native Son, he instructs that the source of tension lies deep beneath the external difference in skin pigmentation that the European colonists noticed in their nautical exploits of foreign civilizations.  Specifically, he notes, “there are those who are betrayed by greed, guilt, and bloodshed.”  If you analyze this quote in reference to a quote in the beginning of the essay, “Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from the dehumanization of ourselves,” one can connect the dots that Baldwin refers to the battle existing in the human condition regarding to its relative ease at giving in to self-interested actions such as, “greed, guilt, and bloodshed,” rather than displaying altruistic acts of selflessness.

  These self-interested acts occur prior to the white-black altercations in America.  Greed is encompassed by the slave trade, in which the European colonists were trying to build cities at cheap labor costs, and the African kings were participating only to profit from the lives of their own pupils.  Guilt is represented in the ever-present action of middle and upper-class whites to contribute to the minority collegiate education, and blood-shed demonstrated by that consistent need of any human race to be at opposition with some foe, and to portray itself as the arbiter of justice.  Guilt, in a frame of reference, could have been played out in the form of Europeans feeling the need to educate the civilizations they encountered since they were advanced compared to their counterparts.

  In the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin, it is made known that Baldwin left the United States in order to freely express his sympathy with the homosexual and negro causes in the United States. It is even evident by this fact that it is a fault of the human psychological condition that we have racial and sexual tension within the United States and across the world.  As Baldwin says, “We will set our faces against them and join hands and walk together into that dazzling future when there will be no white or black.  This is the dream of all liberal men, a dream not at all dishonorable, but, nevertheless, a dream.”  The American way is to assimilate, not to freely join, but no one can forget their past, so to become American is to lie to oneself in essence.  

Blog Reflection: Many Thousands Gone

By: Valencia Price

As I read Baldwin’s Essay “Notes of a Native Son” there was one concept that really stuck out to me. This concept was the complexity and the cultural myths behind Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom. He addresses different stereotypes that were assigned to them in his essay. For Example, “Uncle Tom, trustworthy and sexless, needed only to drop the title ‘Uncle’ to become violent, crafty, and sullen, a menace to any white woman who passed by.” (28) A stereotype for Aunt Jemima would be describing her as “pious” and “loyal.” These stereotypes are the main reason for why these figures are complex. They are complex because they were seen as being loyal and giving all for the white families, but at the same time they were still slaves. Slaves that could become an immense danger to the family if they decided to rebel. He describes the complexity by addressing the point that they had a life that was separate from taking care of the white family, but at the same time no one really knew what their life was like. They were also looked at has model black people, but at the same time could be seen as average blacks if the title were taken off their name as explained by the quote previously stated.

I also found it interesting that he did not discuss the myths behind both Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom deeper in his essay. “The myth surrounding Aunt Jemima’s secret recipe, family life, and plantation life as a happy slave all contribute to the post civil war idealism of southern life and America’s developing consumer culture. (Wikipedia: Aunt Jemima)” I feel that the myth behind these black figures is what shows the complexity with them. In my opinion he should have went into a deeper explanation of what these myths meant, so that the comparison of the new negro could fully be seen. By going deeper into the myths, the idealism of what a negro should be like in the past would show how far the new negro has came and why those figures were complex in nature in general.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_jemima

Baldwin and Myths

What it means to be a Negro in America is something Baldwin contemplates in his essay, “Many Thousands Gone.” He asserts that there are myths that time and history has placed upon the Negro, but only their origins are the key to really uncovering the true meaning.

“Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom are dead” (27)

Baldwin discusses the myths of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom—first by saying they are dead. Why dead? Why would he use such definite and concrete imagery to describe this myths that plagued American culture? I would assert that he did so to portray how the Negro has progressed since then, how he has strive to be all the more literate and how he understands his new place in society. The Negro is no longer the man who will simply say, “yes masta” but instead will think critically by using his new skills (Baldwin places a large emphasis on the Negro being literate, by reading and writing) to out think the white man. In addition he uses these archetypes to show the difference between the depictions of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Aunt Jemima we all see on our favorite pancake box.

Baldwin goes on to depict the Negro who hasn’t found his rightful place in society.

“There are others who remain, in our odd idiom, “underprivileged”; some are bitter and these come to grief; some are unhappy, but, continually presented with the evidence of a better day soon to come, are speedily becoming less so.” (27)

He asserts that this Negro may have not found his place because he does not fully understand his origins. He has all but forgotten the struggles their predecessors (Aunt Jemima & Uncle Tom) endured. The “new” Negro does not understand the complexities and hardships experienced by others and cannot fully get ahead without looking behind.

“Most of them care nothing whatever about race” (27)

Baldwin also talks about other attributes of this new Negro. He asserts that he is “well-dressed and scrubbed” showing that he now has assimilated into American culture and taken up American ways. He is no longer wearing cultural garments, as we understand he places a big difference between the terms African and American. This Negro does not do field work like your Uncle Tom once did, and doesn’t have to tend on the white master like Aunt Jemima.  In addition, he notes that the new Negro is never “laughed at” showing the pain and suffering their predecessors endured that is no longer experienced.

Baldwin stresses these myths to depict the true differences and strides that have been made over time. He wants the reader to feel the complexities of the situation at hand and also get the new American Negro to understand that he cannot simply forget his origins.

In Baldwin's Many Thousands Gone, issues concerning the depiction of the African American persona are referenced prominently through the figureheads of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom. Through their stories we come to understand how the history of the Negro in America has digressed largely from the simplistic stereotype of ignorant, illiterate, and "underprivileged" individuals, to a sense of a larger community and culture of well-educated and able bodies. Baldwin alludes that these people under the subject of this scrutiny still retain the same physical characteristics of their forebears, being "almost as dark" as the generations that came before them,  yet they are nevertheless "ferociously literate, well-dressed and scrubbed, [are] never laughed at, and are not likely to have set foot in a cotton or tobacco field or in any but the most modern of kitchens."(27) That these people are possibly seen by others as some sort of perverse caricature is of menial importance to their development as sentient and caring human beings, and their deep sense of personal identity is reflected in the fact that they care so little of being labeled exclusively by the basis of their race. What the individuals truly yearn for is to earn a "proper place in the sun and the right to be left alone, like any other citizen of the republic."

This sense of resolve and passivity expressed by the current attitudes of this African American dynamic is in direct opposition to the presumed position taken by the black community only a brief period of time ago. Whereas now the

The Misinterpretation of Blacks in the Social Arena: A Reflection on “Many Thousands Gone”

         By:Kelsea Wilkerson

       Throughout the passage “Many Thousands Gone,” James Baldwin presents several different perspectives on the idea of what it truly means to be Black and American.  In the essay, Baldwin blatantly explains that the concept of being African-American is not possible due to “our dehumanization of the Negro” (25).  The use of “our” is meant to place emphasize on the American society as a whole.  Historically, American society has always seen the “Negro” as inferior and unable to match up equally.  Baldwin describes the American view of the “Negro” as a “social problem and not a personal or a human problem” (25). Society has become so accustomed to the idea of the Negro male as being a criminal or a thug, similarly the idea of the Negro woman as illiterate and destitute has become common place in American society.  These views are often perpetuated by the media’s constant misinterpretation and underrepresentation of Black communities nationwide.  When a Black person earns a prestigious position or when they receive accolades, “we are panic-stricken and we ourselves [feel] betrayed” (25).  Baldwin believes that as the “stereotypical Black” person image continues to get pounded into the heads of Americans, we find it hard to accept a person who effectively breaks the stereotype of the typical Black person.  It is important to understand the Negro’s position in the social arena. The struggle of the Negro to become fully American is far from over, society must find a way to eliminate the stigmas attached with being Black and realize that everyone is indeed created equally.

            In “Many Thousands Gone,” James Baldwin is adamant on his views on race in America. He voices his frustrations and anger with the way Americans handle racism.  When he says “the battle is elsewhere,” he means that the battle to end racism is not in the public, but it is in the hearts of society (45). In an essay published by the History News Network, author Leonard Steinhorn, writes on Black progress as viewed by Blacks and whites. Today, Blacks are not satisfied with the state of race relations, but whites believe race relations are not perfect, but are better than in the past. (Steinhorn). According to Steinhorn’s essay and observation of society, Baldwin’s view on race is in America is still relevant today. The Black image is one riddled with scars and bruises and the White mind is filled with false images and stereotypes.  Race in America is always a taboo subject, but if it continues to be ignored it will continue to spiral out of control. The best way to finally abolish the misinterpretation of the Negro, is to understand the Negro and his struggle to make in a seemingly unwelcoming society.

http://hnn.us/articles/226.html

The Musical Transmission of Black Culture

Baldwin begins his article by saying, “It is only in his music... that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story,” (24).  Music is a very distinct mark of any culture or people group; however, Baldwin argues that even this extremely individualized and moving form of music hasn’t been strong enough to bridge the “dangerous and reverberating  silence” between the Negro community and the white majority(24). He ultimately concludes that the true message has failed to be transmitted do to a difference in frame of reference. This is due to several factors, such as the white cultures’ lack of experience in the subject matter, a sense guilt that the music potentially conjures, and segregation that existed in the process of defining the genre itself. 

     Blues music, which is the earliest recorded example of African-American music (the first recordings surfaced in the early 20’s, is rooted in the Negro experience (i.e. slavery, emancipation, segregation) that Baldwin refers to as “ that shadow which lies athwart our national life;” an intensely personal experience in which white Americans often played an antagonistic role. One that the white majority did not have to experience.  Simply (and generally) put, the whites don’t know what the black musicians are singing about. 

     It could be argued that, in hearing the stories told by various Negro musicians, they are hearing the stories of the damage they have inflicted and the pain they’ve caused.  This sense of guilt serves as a hindrance to the reception of black culture in that, as long as it exists, the white majority, Baldwin argues, seeks absolution.  He believesthat result of this search for a clean conscience results in a paradox in which whites seek to feel the guilt in order to be free of it. Balwin says, “we (white Americans) reinvest the black face with our guilt; and we do this... out of an unrealized need to suffer absolution,” (26).  As long as whites are caught in this paradox, they are unable to  truly receive the messages ingrained in black music and culture.

     Another factor that contributed to the difficult transmission and reception of black music and culture was the way the people who recorded and listened to the music (a majority of which were white) chose to classify it.  At the time of it’s inception, blues music was not referred to as blues.  Both whites and black played music with the characteristics that have come to define blues; (AAB structure, the use of “blue” notes, and slide guitar) however, as producers began to market this seemingly emerging form of music, the black and white interpretations were defined in completely different terms.   Where as white music was referred to as “country” or “hillbilly” music, the black form was marketed as “blues” or “race” music.  Although both “hillbilly” and “race” are somewhat derogatory terms, labeling something as “race” music is quite dehumanizing and extremely segregational.  It could be assumed that a white listener, given the choice, would listen to his own race’s songs and , in doing that, miss the stories and experiences (culture) presented in the “race” music.  And if Baldwin argues that “music is the only way in which Negro America has been able to tell his story,” that story is not going to be heard. 

Charlie Patton- High Water Everywhere

The Origin of the Blues

Well, backwater done rose all around Sumner now,
drove me down the line
Backwater done rose at Sumner,
drove poor Charley down the line
Lord, I'll tell the world the water,
done crept through this town
Lord, the whole round country,
Lord, river has overflowed
Lord, the whole round country,
man, is overflowed
You know I can't stay here,
I'll go where it's high, boy
I would goto the hilly country,
but, they got me barred
Now, look-a here now at Leland
river was risin' high
Look-a here boys around Leland tell me,
river was raisin' high
Boy, it's risin' over there, yeah
I'm gonna move to Greenville
fore I leave, goodbye
Look-a here the water now, Lordy,
Levee broke, rose most everywhere
The water at Greenville and Leland,
Lord, it done rose everywhere
Boy, you can't never stay here
I would go down to Rosedale
but, they tell me there's water there
Now, the water now, mama,
done took Charley's town
Well, they tell me the water,
done took Charley's town
Boy, I'm goin' to Vicksburg
Well, I'm goin' to Vicksburg,
for that high of mine
I am goin' up that water,
where lands don't never flow
Well, I'm goin' over the hill where,
water, oh don't ever flow
Boy, hit Sharkey County and everything was down in Stovall
But, that whole county was leavin',
over that Tallahatchie shore Boy,
went to Tallahatchie and got it over there
Lord, the water done rushed all over,
down old Jackson road
Lord, the water done raised,
over the Jackson road
Boy, it starched my clothes
I'm goin' back to the hilly country,
won't be worried no more

Many Thousands Gone Blog Assignment

“Many Thousands Gone"

By: Chandler Carlson

            In the passage from “Many Thousands Gone”, James Baldwin concludes that white is the only acceptable color in America at that time. “The general desire seems to be to make it blank if one cannot make it white” (26). The Negro has no identity, but is instead thought of as disturbing statistics of “slums, rapes, injustices, remote violence” (26). Baldwin went on to say that the Negro is thought of as a cancer, “which cannot be cured” (25). For this reason, American society finds it easier and more convenient to not associate faces to the Negro because that would make him more human and less of the cancer society is comfortable with regarding him as.

            A statistic is just a number. It has no positive or negative connotation. It has no feelings. Society considered the black population as the statistics of tragic and violent events. White Americans associated the Negro to something as numb as a number because they could not face the guilt of the injustices that confronted him. So society felt more comfortable keeping the Negro at an arm’s length. They instead clumped every black individual together and made untried generalizations. “If he breaks out sociological and sentimental image of him we are panic-stricken and we feel ourselves betrayed” (25). The white American had its assumptions about the Negro and was comfortable with those assumptions. This is why Baldwin said that a face that is not white is made blank because the guilt of the assumptions and generalizations is easier to bear when those affected aren’t similar to us. Instead, “the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for our annulment of his” (25). The face of the Negro is left blank because he would be too similar to the white American if his face were recognizable.

            Frantz Fanon discusses “Native Son” in his “1952 essay L'Experience Vecue du Noir, or ‘The Fact of Blackness’. ‘In the end,’ writes Fanon, ‘Bigger Thomas acts. To put an end to his tension, he acts, he responds to the world's anticipation.’” (Wiki) Frantz’s words are disturbing because he recognizes that the murder Bigger committed was what society expected. It ended their anticipation and fulfilled their expectation for the Negro. Baldwin explains, “The courtroom, judge, jury, witnesses and spectators, recognize immediately that Bigger is their creation and they recognize this not only with hatred and fear and guilt and the resulting fury of self-righteousness but also with that morbid fullness of pride mixed with horror with which one regards the extent and power of one’s wickedness” (43). By perpetuating the practice of seeing a blank face where there was a black face, society denied the Negro the opportunity to escape the lurking and relentless expectation of society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Son

How Americans are made and the "Negro" past

In James Baldwin’s essay, “Many Thousands Gone,” many topics are brought up and discussed about how Americans are made and the history of “Negros”. Baldwin believes that Americans are made at a point when they “reject all other ties, any other history, and himself” (29) to adopt themselves to the land. He says that Americans, in a sense, reinvent themselves to be new and pure. Baldwin believes this a problem that all Americans face and he says it “baffles the immigrant,” (29) this confusion and problem occurs because without the past many people would not be able to know how to describe themselves. The statement of how Americans are made may have been true during the time when Baldwin wrote this essay, but I do not believe this statement would be agreed with by many people today because people have learned to describe themselves through use of hyphenated terms. Today many Americans may combine their ethnicity or race with American, such as African American, Latino American and a variety of other terms. There is still much discussion about the creation of hyphenated terms in America because people still believe it is not such a great thing.

When it comes to talking about the history of the “Negro”, Baldwin goes on to state that “the Negro past was taken from him whether he would or not” (29). I believe this is true because not very many people feel comfortable talking about the past when it comes how African Americans came to be where they are now. It was a touchy topic when Baldwin discussed it in his essay and it will continue to be a touchy topic because as Baldwin mentions, it was a shameful history for “Negros”. Although the history of the “Negro” is not often discussed, with Baldwin’s statement I am sure that even if African Americans wanted to discuss their history, it would have been frowned upon. Throughout the entire essay Baldwin mentions how Americans are often ashamed and would rather look the other way as if the “Negro” past did not occur and all is fine between blacks and whites.  

Baldwin then uses a sarcastic tone when stating, “Shameful, for he was heathen as well as black and would never have discovered the healing blood of Christ had not we braved the jungles to bring him these glad tidings” (29). When Baldwin adds these sentences I feel as if he is mocking the many Americans who think that if it had not been for those “brave” men who went into jungles to capture people and bring them to America as slaves, they would not be here today. Baldwin’s use of sarcasm throughout the essay was helpful to distinguish points where he was more upset.

Here is a link to some discussion on the topic of the creation of hyphenation in America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHyphenated_American

The Darkness of Our Minds

The Darkness of Our Minds

            What does one think when considering the term “darkness”? Is it immorality, a desolate place, uncertainty, a tainting evil, a curse? In James Baldwin’s essay “Many Thousands Gone” from the 1955 collection Notes of A Native Son he clearly uses this expression to show his readers the place in which the Negro in America hides in Americans’ minds. “One may say that the Negro in America does not really exist except in the darkness of our minds”(p.24-25) leaving the audience pondering upon this blackness in which Americans conceal the Negro in America.

James Baldwin makes it clear that this “darkness of our minds” is not a place of non-thinking but a place where negative thoughts thrive concerning the Negro in America. “…To think of him is to think of statistics, slums, rapes, injustices, remote violence….” (p.25) This is the darkness of the mind he speaks of.  In a sense statistics and some fallacious data gives the American’s dark minds a type of ammo. In the Wikipedia article, “Criminal Black Man Stereotype” it states that these negative thoughts can be proven by incarceration and criminal statistics. Tying into Baldwin’s assertion, “Research on perceptions in the US shows that many people believe that African-American men engage in violent crimes at the highest rates of all racial categories, which is reflected by crime statistics.” (Wikipedia; Criminal Black Man Stereotypes, Perceptions.). This is the social arena in which the Negro in America plays.

Baldwin goes on to explain the darkness in which the Negro lingers referring to “the beast” America has created in its “jungle of statistics”.  “In our image of the Negro breathes the past we deny, not dead but living yet and powerful, the beast in our jungle of statistics,” (p.28) leading the audience to feel sort of condemnation in being American and contributing to the beast and negligence to acknowledge the wretched past in which this beast endured. This condemnation soon changes to conviction later own in the passage giving American’s a sense of hopeful redemption to their problematic thinking.

All in all Baldwin’s critique/essay brought into perspective the negative connation in which American’s hold on to concerning the Negro in America. Statistics and various data are the fuel to this fire in the darkness of the American mind. Americans have a part in this darkness as Baldwin infers. Breaking these stereotypes and proceeding not to believe them can truly illuminate this darkness.

Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_black_man_stereotype