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"And if His love was so great, and if He loved all His children, why were we, the blacks, cast down so far?" (31)

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"And if His love was so great, and if He loved all His children, why were we, the blacks, cast down so far?" (31)

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Was this question directed towards himself, or directed towards his readers? Why would he ask this question if, all this years later, he probably found the answer? If not for himself, who was the question intended for?

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"And all of this is happening in the richest and freest country in the world, and in the middle of the twentieth century" (55).

What does Baldwin suggest about the power structure of America? Who is evaluated as the richest and the freest, and who is excluded from this evaluation?

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"The principles were Blindness, Loneliness, and Terror, ... I would love to believe that the principles were Faith, Hope, and Charity," (31)

Do these principles, both Loneliness, blindness, and terror, and faith, hope, and charity, affect the way that he reflects on the world compared to other people and do other people have the same idea of what the principles should be like Baldwin?

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"And if His love was so great, and if He loved all His children, why were we, the blacks, cast down so far?" (31).

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"The world is white and they are black" (25).

Obviously, this is very clearly how the society is laid out during Baldwin's time but how does Baldwin's sympathy connect to recognizing that the world is against them?

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"Black people, mainly, look down or look up but do not look at each other, not at you, and white, people, mainly, look away." (p.30)

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"They had the judges, the juries, the shotguns, the law-in a word, power. But it was a criminal power, to be feared but not respected, and to be outwitted in any way whatever" (23).

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“I realized that the bible had been written by white men. I knew that, according to many Christians, I was a descendant of Ham...and therefore predestined to be a slave...my fate had been sealed forever, from the beginning of time” (36)

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"Therefore, whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves" (44)

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"I had been well conditioned by the world in which I grew up" (24).

The conditioning mentioned by Baldwin is illustrative of the fact that the system of oppression was effective in degradation of people of color and was effective in teaching them that their place in society was below white people  and never above.

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". . . a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless." (55)

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"It is this individual uncertainty on the part of white American men and women, this ability to renew themselves at the fountain of their own lives, that makes the discussion, let alone elucidation, of any conundrum-that is, any reality-so supremely difficult" (43)

Through strong word choice, such as by utilizing "elucidation", Baldwin illustrates how many whites keep to themselves, ignoring meaningful experiences in their lives. Because whites are so reserved, it is hard for them to connect with black's appreciations and acceptance of themselves. d

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"the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked only that they be spineless" (55).
Who was the audience Baldwin was targeting with this quote an why might he try and use it?

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"I realized that the Bible had been written by white men. I knew that, according to many Christians, I was a descendant of Ham, who had been cursed, and that I was therefore destined to be a slave" (36).

- Baldwin is arguing that the Bible wasn't written for black people. For him, Christianity wasn't accepting. He argues that the Bible was written by whites, who denounced blacks as descendants of Ham.
- In this section, Baldwin has a bitter tone as he realizes Christianity, a religion he put his faith into for many years, was never meant to comfort him or provide him joy.

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“It probably occurred to me around this time that the vision people hold of the world to come is but a reflection, with predictable wishful distortions, of the world in which they live” (40).

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"Crime became real, for example - for the first time - not as a possibility but as the possibility" (21). When a society has forced many of its members to resort to crime just to survive, it has failed. During Baldwin's time, this was true, their society had failed them, is this still true today?

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"...but there is no reason that black men should be expected to be more patient, more forbearing, more farseeing than whites; indeed, quite the contrary" (p 59)

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"In the United States, violence and heroism have been made synonymous except when it comes to blacks," (58)
Evita Kanaan

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"A few years ago, I would have hated these people with all my heart. Now I pitied them, pitied them in order not to despise them." (56)

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"A few years ago, I would have hated these people with all my heart. Now I pitied them, pitied them in order not to despise them." (56)

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There is a certain power behind this quote. Going from hatred to pity, is something that holds so much movement and impact. To pity a population that has done nothing but hate and make life miserable for others is a shift in the tide.

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"Everything inflamed me, and that was bad enough, but I myself had also become a source of fire and temptation"(25).

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"I was forced, reluctantly, to realize that the Bible itself had been written by men. and translated by men out of languages I could not read, and I was already, without quite admitting it to myself, terribly involved with the effort of putting words on paper"( Baldwin 35).

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"One would never defeat one's circumstances by working and saving one's pennies; one would never, by working, acquire that many pennies" (21).

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"The fear that I heard in my father's voice, for example, when he realized that I really believed I could do anything a white boy could" (26).

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How does Baldwins approach to questioning older teachings of religion aid him in his search for moral righteousness within Christianity?

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"Black people, mainly, look down or look up but do not look at each other, not at you, and white people, mainly, look away" (30).

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"there was no love in church. It was a mask for hatred and self-hatred and despair" (39).

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"Therefore, whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves" (44).

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"Because if I should speak, no one would believe me" (53).