Notes of a Native Son

by James Baldwin

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.

If an outbreak of more than usual violence occurs, as in 1935 or in 1943, it is met with sorrow and surprise and rage; the social hostility of the rest of the city feeds on this as proof that they were right all along, and the hostility increases; speeches are made, committees are set up, investigations ensue. Steps are taken to right the wrong, without, however, expanding or demolishing the ghetto. The idea is to make it less of a social liability, a process about as helpful as make-up to a leper.

At the same time, there is a subterranean assumption that the Jew should “know better,” that he has suffered enough himself to know what suffering means.

I wanted to do something to crush these white faces, which were crushing me.

I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.

This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair.

At the root of the American Negro problem is the necessity of the American white man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to be able to live with himself.

This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.