Baldwin says his father was “defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he really believed what white people thought about him.” Is it double consciousness if you believe what other people think about you, or only if you know what they think but have a separate, doubled, since of self?
The Fire Next Time – 1
The Fire Next Time – 2
Baldwin suggests that he doesn’t just take issue with the fact that white people have committed the crimes they’ve committed against black people, but that they insist on a certain form of innocence, in spite of their crimes. “But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent.It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.”
Native Son – 3
Baldwin assures his nephew that America is his country, the black man’s country, asserting that “we can make America what America must become.” How do we relate this point to Langston Hughes’s idea that we should “Let America be America Again,” or Trump’s idea that he could “Make America Great Again”?