James Baldwin's Confrontation Withracist Terror in the American South

Abstract

The memory of Jesse, James Baldwin's protagonist in “Going to Meet the Man,” channels a flow of impressions that both dramatizes his psychic and sexual wounding and provides a useful perspective into the distorted reality growing out of Southern history of racist violence. Baldwin's experiments with perspective, time handling, and revealing reflect his interest in style as exposé of harmful delusions. His treatment of point of view functions to analyze culture myths about sexuality that justify violent rape of Black women and castration and live burning of Black men. Validated as ethical norm, these myths serve as the altar on which the community sacrifices its capacity for self-examination. They supply the energy that keeps in motion cycles of barbarity against which the perpetrators claim, ironically, to be defending their enlightened selves. Inevitable, therefore, is the tragic undermining of individuals'humanity and warping of the social character.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Baldwin, J. (1963).The fire next time. New York: Dial.

Baldwin, J. (1964).Blues for Mr. Charlie. New York: Dial.

Baldwin, J. (1966). Unnameable objects, unspeakable crimes. In Ebony (Ed.),The White problem in America (pp. 173-181). Chicago: Johnson.

Baldwin, J. (1972).Notes of a native son. Boston: Beacon.

Baldwin, J. (1998a). Alas, poor Richard. In Collected essays (pp. 247-268). New York: Library of America Press.

Baldwin, J. (1998b). Going to meet the man. In Early novels and stories (pp. 933-950). New York: Library of America Press.

Bunche, R. (1990-1992). Conceptions and ideologies of the Negro problem.Contributions in Black Studies, 9/10, 70-114.

Darwin, C. (1962).The origin of species and the descent of man and selection in relation to sex. New York: Random House.

Fanon, F. (1967).Black skin, White masks (C. L. Markmann, Trans.). New York: Grove. (Original work published 1952)

10.

Freeze, P. (1977). James Baldwin: Going to meet the man. In P. Bruck (Ed.),The Black American short story in the 20th century: A collection of critical essays (pp. 171-185). Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner.

11.

Freud, S. (1953). Three essays on sexuality. In J. Stracey (Ed.),Standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 7, pp. 124-145). London: Hogarth.

12.

Hamlyn, D. (1982). What exactly is social about the origins of understanding. In G. Butterworth & P. Light (Eds.),Social cognition: Studies in the development of understanding (pp. 17-31). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

13.

Johnson, J. W. (1990).The autobiography of an ex-colored man. New York: Penguin.

14.

Jones, H. L. (1977). Style, form, and content in the short fiction of James Baldwin. In T. B. O'Daniel (Ed.),James Baldwin: A critical evaluation (pp. 143-150). Washington, DC: Howard University Press.

15.

Littlejohn, D. (1965). Exemplary and other Baldwins.Nation, 201, 478-480.

16.

Pratt, L. H. (1978).James Baldwin. Boston: Twayne.

17.

Stowe, H. B. (1852).Uncle Tom's cabin: Or life among the lowly. Boston: John P. Jewett.

18.

Weston, J. L. (1957).From ritual to romance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

19.

Whitlow, R. (1988). Baldwin's “going to meet the man”: Racial brutality and sexual gratification. In F. L. Standley & N. V. Burt (Eds.),Critical essays on James Baldwin (pp. 194-198). Boston: G. K. Hall.

20.

Wright, R. (1940).Native son. New York: Harper and Row.