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• W186994233 abstract "Abstract James Baldwin's work combines autobiography and social commentary in a manner that still illuminates the thorniest race issues in the United States, including black anti-Semitism, the alienation of black youth, and the attempted silencing of black voices. His unique individual experience as a gay African-American male gave him insights into the social construction of gender, race, and national character. His essays continue to challenge the reader and the educator to understand common struggle of all citizens--white or of color--to define the identity. ********** It is common to imagine that a man's life can be mapped by the intersection of facts from his personal history. So we learn from James Baldwin's biography that he was born in Harlem in 1924, was awarded numerous prizes to pursue his writing, and eventually settled as an expatriate in Paris where he died in 1987. Beyond his official biography one finds from those who knew him that he was gay (or perhaps bisexual), often fell victim to bouts of depression, and drank and smoked too much to the detriment of his health. But what is surprising about even the most intimate reminiscences of his friends is how little they add to our knowledge of the man beyond his writings; even the best biographies of Baldwin ultimately end up in a discussion of his work. This is not because he lived his life away from the public eye, but rather because his writings bear such honest to his experiences. However, his writing is not interesting solely as the basis for a psychological portrait, or because of his dexterity with language. Instead, his spiritual journey reveals a search for personal identity which he relates to the American problem of identity in general and race in particular. Using the accounts of a witness to history is a critical pedagogical tool that has been employed to good use in several venues, for instance, in Holocaust studies. But this essay would like to suggest a specific use stemming from Baldwin's approach to this role. Since high school and college students wrestle with essential issues of identity, Baldwin's non-fiction prose may be studied as a journey of self-examination in three ways. For African-American youth, it illustrates how their identities are incomprehensible apart from the identity in general. For non-black students, it teaches how their identity, conversely, is incomprehensible without the presence and acknowledgement of African-Americans. Finally, it shows all students that identity need not be defined by separating oneself from some Other, but by understanding how breaching that barrier may lead to a deeper self-understanding. Elaborating Baldwin's accounts of the inextricable relationship between identity and black identity becomes an exercise in changing students' consciousness--not just with regard to race, but also in relation to other barriers and identity issues. Baldwin's insights persuade because they can still render even the most contemporary racial and identity concerns comprehensible. One of Baldwin's constant themes was that the search for identity is a distinctly problem, one that distinguishes us from a European past that many claim, incorrectly, as our sole heritage. In his essay Stranger in Paris, Baldwin notes how the French, unlike the Americans, who they are--ethnically, historically, and as a people. Americans, by contrast, struggle to identify and understand themselves. We recognize each other, know one when we see one, but we cannot name what we share in common as Americans. For Baldwin, what we cannot name is race. Our struggle has its roots in the denial of the role of race--particularly the African race--in the creation of identity. The African's loss of history due to slavery represented both a tragedy and a challenge. The tragedy was that black people lost a sense of who they were before they came to this continent. …" @default.
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• W186994233 date "2003-12-22" @default.
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• W186994233 title "James Baldwin: America's Native Son" @default.
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