Notes of a Native Son
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Notes of a Native Son - James Baldwin - reading Maya+Sofia 13 May 2016
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Good morning Maya, I'm going to take a look at the intro today. How's Reggie doing?
Sofia wrote: "Good morning Maya, I'm going to take a look at the intro today. How's Reggie doing?"Morning :)
I finished book last night (intro and all) and I haven't read Reggie's book yesterday. Today is his day!
Equals in Paris - if i remember correctly from the biography, Leeming said that JB attempted to commit suicide right after he was released from jail. I felt JBs desperation here to a certain extent but if i didn't know the facts from the bio i wouldn't have thought things were so bad.So for me the combination of the two books works well.
What i'll remember from this essay is that JB realized that the laughter of those in power is universal. That they are able to laugh at the misery of other people shows that they don't see them as human beings.
Stranger in the VillageInteresting, what you mention above didn't bother me at all. But when i think of the Europe he describes i think: They. And you are saying: We.
Clearly we are coming with different projections here.
I'm going to read the essay again and come back.
I had forgotten that suicide attempt. Our vision would have a lot of holes without Leeming. At the village i kept thinking that he was probably in the chalet of one of Lucien's relatives. Here we have no mention of Lucien.
yes, he was in Lucien's mother cottage.
i have no idea what he's saying here because he's speaking French but worth watching for the kids' reactions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hPEa...
:D like the children he described in the story.
Sofia wrote: ":D like the children he described in the story."exactly!
I imagine Lucien filmed this. JB doesn't mention him in this essay but he was with him in the village.
Sofia wrote: " In Stranger in the Village he falls in the same trap by assuming that all Europeans have the same past with the Black man, that we were capable of putting him in abstract because we kept him in the colonies. I can imagine us talking to him about this in one of those all night discussions of his. Where I would mention that Europe is made up of a lot of different countries, with different pasts, different languages where not all if us had colonies but were colonies ourselves. "Europe’s black possessions remained—and do remain—in Europe’s colonies, at which remove they represented no threat whatever to European identity. If they posed any problem at all for the European conscience, it was a problem which remained comfortingly abstract: in effect, the black man, as a man, did not exist for Europe.
Ok, I think I understand where you’re coming from now. For what it’s worth, i also understand why by Europe he means the countries which have played significant role in the history of the world or as he said in another place: The Makers of Civilization. Which, I must agree with you, is a limited view on Europe. I can only assume he’s done this on purpose to further enforce his argument but also because the other countries in Europe were not – at this time – in any way related to the issues he discussed. But it’s also truth that there are many countries in Europe which didn’t share any past with the black people.
I think the point he’s making with this story is that because African-Americans ARE Americans, they share their lives with the white Americans in all possible ways but this is not the case in Europe, Europeans struggle to grasp the problem of racism, it is too distant for them. Which I also agree with.
But in America, even as a slave, he was an inescapable part of the general social fabric and no American could escape having an attitude toward him. Americans attempt until today to make an abstraction of the Negro, but the very nature of these abstractions reveals the tremendous effects the presence of the Negro has had on the American character.
I totally agree with his point. Americans (all of them, white, black, brown, yellow and any other colour I've left out) share a past, which leads to sharing a present. Going in denial about that is still a present source of friction. Somewhere in the into the writer mentions that Baldwin's voice is so current and this is why. His observations of humanity are spot on and humanity does not change that much that his observations become irrelevant.
Our discussion re Black Past etc has made me think of Africans emigrating now to America - they do not have the same "past" - how is that effecting them and America. I think we might get a peek with Americanah
yes, we agreed we are reading Americanah in June, right?
Yes June, we have to set a date with Carol.
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Stranger in the Village. JB's view of why Americans are Americans is a voice i want to hear. Somewhere in this book he mentions European naivety because we lump all Americans together without understanding how all the states interwine and pull against each other. In Stranger in the Village he falls in the same trap by assuming that all Europeans have the same past with the Black man, that we were capable of putting him in abstract because we kept him in the colonies. I can imagine us talking to him about this in one of those all night discussions of his. Where I would mention that Europe is made up of a lot of different countries, with different pasts, different languages where not all of us had colonies but were colonies ourselves.