James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son": Racism and the Psychology of Hate

Introduction and Baldwin's Life

James Baldwin was an important twentieth-century writer who transitioned from novelist to essayist in the latter half of the century. His essays were praised for their "tenderness and ferocity" and the ways in which they explored great themes of human life. Baldwin's main focus was on racism in America and on the effects of pride on the soul. Baldwin himself admittedly suffered from pride, as he states in his essay "Notes of a Native Son." His fiction and essays were vehicles for exploring both the faults and failings of society and self while pinpointing the way toward a "better" world. Baldwin became not only one of the most important essayists but also a great intellectual and political activist who sought to promote humane ideals such as equality.

Notes of a Native Son was published in a collection of essays under the same title in 1955. It was notable as Baldwin's first foray into nonfiction, after launching his career as a writer of fiction with works such as Go Tell It on the Mountain. The essay was well received by the public and ranked in the top twenty of the Modern Library's 100 best twentieth-century nonfiction books. It is particularly revealing of what life was like for a Black American in the first half of the twentieth century in America. This paper will discuss some of the major themes of Notes of a Native Son, particularly the psychological effects of racism as shown through Baldwin's father, Baldwin himself, and the African American community in Harlem during World War II and the Harlem Riots.

Racism's Impact on Baldwin's Father

Baldwin sets out to show, via his father's experience, how the psychological effects of racism can be debilitating for a man in America. Baldwin's father was a preacher who was filled with bitterness and paranoia and suspected every white person of wanting to do him or his family harm. For instance, when a white teacher who recognized James's talent for writing offered to take him to the theater, James's father saw only a threat, whereas James's mother saw the white teacher as behaving like a "Christian."

Baldwin speaks of his father to show that racism can be deadly to a man's mind, as it was to his father's. Baldwin traces this problem back to the South, where his father grew up in New Orleans, which he saw as evil like Sodom. His father objected to Louis Armstrong, the popular Black jazz trumpeter who appealed to both white and Black audiences. When his sister refused to let him take down a photograph of Armstrong from the wall, he chased her away and later refused to have anything to do with her when she was sick. His father held grudges long after he had grown up and been so damaged mentally by racism.

His father was also a poor communicator. Whenever he tried to help his children with homework, his tension would overcome him, making his children unable to speak, which only made him angrier. He could not treat anyone well in his neighborhood, was uncharitable to them, and had no friends who would visit him by the end of his life. It became so severe that he had to be committed to a mental institution. He was suspicious of Baldwin's white teacher because he feared a "white" education would lead his son to hell. He was paranoid about people stealing from his home, though Baldwin noted that there was never anything worth stealing since his father could barely afford to feed his nine children. He was suspicious and mean toward people on the block who had energy to party and fight but not to improve their lives, even though he had energy only for bitterness. This was partly because his mind was consumed by the psychological effects of racism and could not cope with anything except the belief that "white people would do anything to keep a Negro down."

Baldwin's father exemplifies the psychological effects of racism because he demonstrates how deeply racism can eat into a man's soul. His father also served as a model for Baldwin—a warning of what might happen to him if he allowed racism to consume him as it had his father. It can lead to the most hateful abuses, and that is the reason one has to guard oneself against it. Baldwin never understood or was able to talk to his father because of the way racism had damaged his father's mind. Only when Baldwin experienced his own struggle with this hatred in New Jersey and in Harlem during World War II did he finally begin to see that what was happening to him was what had been happening in his father's brain for so long—the ugly effects of Jim Crow laws and inhumanity, which had fostered an incurable hatred in his being. It reaches a point, as Baldwin admits, where you want to "hold onto the hatred" even though you know that doing so is killing you.

Baldwin's Personal Reckoning in New Jersey

Moreover, it is clear that Baldwin never truly understood his father until Harlem exploded on the day of his father's funeral. The violence felt everywhere in Harlem, the rage over the inhumanity that festered between whites and blacks, suddenly appeared in riots, broken glass, and looted stores. That is when Baldwin finally realized that this was what he had been feeling in his own mind—this tension between right and wrong, love and hate—and he remembered his own good memories of his father being proud of him, smiling, loving his mother, speaking to him. In his own hate, he had forgotten these good points. Now, in Harlem's hate, the community was forgetting the value of that which it wanted to destroy.

Baldwin's experience in New Jersey is important because it underscores the epiphany he had when his father died and Harlem erupted. Had Baldwin not experienced firsthand what it was like to go mad because of the hatred engendered by racism, he likely would not have been able to forgive his father, himself, or the whites he despised. The madness caused by hatred caused by racism—this was the vicious cycle that Baldwin realized had to end. Because he felt it personally and felt himself going mad with hate, he could relate to what his father must have felt and how terrible the struggle could be. Seeing his father dead, the effects of that struggle, made him feel pity at last, and that pity allowed his mind to open to the fresh air of love, like sunlight, on the heels of a song the church choir sang—one his father had always liked. With pity and love came good memories. But none of this would have been possible had the conflict not first been explored through Baldwin's own personal experiences in New Jersey.

The New Jersey experience was pivotal in getting Baldwin to see the actual relationship between blacks and whites and how it was full of tension, hatred, and madness. His job at the defense factory was marred by this tension, hatred, and madness. He was fired multiple times but kept finding a loophole to get back in—until the last time. He was fired because he did not behave like an "Uncle Tom Negro." Instead, he behaved like himself, proud of his achievements and determined to be seen.

This determination was evident in his pursuit to keep his job even as he offended everyone there with his attitude and his unwillingness to play by the Jim Crow laws of the South. In Harlem he could be himself, so why not in Jersey? This determination was also evident in the way he kept going back to the cafeteria to be served even after they said they did not serve "Negroes," and the only reason he had eaten there at all was because he simply picked up food that was not his. This determination led to scenes and more tension, resentment, and madness. Baldwin could feel it building up inside him, and he could hear it in the way he responded to people who asked what he wanted: he was sharp, insistent, rude, almost menacing. He had a chip on his shoulder and he did not mind letting everyone see it. He was turning into his father—becoming the exact same man: bitter, loathing, full of resentment as an effect of racism eating up his brain. The racist actions of whites and blacks just fostered more resentment and more racism. There had to be an end to it or some release. In one sense, death and destruction are two forms of release that allow the bad blood to get out.

The tension reached a boiling point for Baldwin when his white friend took him out for a movie and dinner. The film was called This Land Is Mine, and Baldwin felt it to be bitterly ironic because it was painfully obvious to him that the land he lived in was not at all his. This movie set the mood for what happened next: already annoyed by the film's insensitive title, he went with his friend to the American Diner, where, of course, the waiters refused to serve a Negro. So Baldwin and his friend left. But the irony and bitterness was too much: the madness took over Baldwin's brain, and he saw white faces everywhere pounding down on him, keeping him from feeling like a welcome and appreciated human being. He wanted only to lash out. He walked and walked, leaving his friend to chase after him. He was in a stupor. He went into a fancy restaurant where he knew he would not be served, but he just wanted to go in, be confronted, and lash out at the person who told him no. It turned out to be a meek, frightened female waitress. But this only infuriated Baldwin all the more. He threw a glass pitcher at her, but it missed and instead shattered the mirror behind her. Baldwin might have been beaten to death for this gross misconduct, but his friend had caught up and told him to run, meanwhile directing the angry whites and police in an opposite direction.

At that moment, Baldwin realized that the madness that seemed to be killing his father was now trying to kill him. It was taking over. He needed to let go of it and be free of it—but the question was: how?

The Harlem Riots as Collective Manifestation

This same problem was reflected in both his father and in Harlem itself. The madness brought on by the psychological effects of racism was destructive, and whoever let it take control destroyed himself. What happened in Harlem to spark the riot in 1943 was the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer. The shooting incident was exaggerated and fictionalized, and that fictional account made everyone lose their minds with rage at the injustice of the way whites were treating blacks.

The incident had its beginnings at a hotel where white officers, Black men, and their girlfriends were a common spectacle and where fights were not scarce. However, this time it was as though this incident were the straw that broke the camel's back. The crowds and streets of Harlem said no more. They demanded satisfaction: the bad blood had to be let out.

However, the incident had an even deeper cause, which stemmed from the fact that everyone in Harlem—whether churchgoer or prostitute—felt this injustice. This common feeling stemmed from the fact that everyone had a loved one in war, and what they read in the newspapers and heard in letters from loved ones confirmed this sense of injustice. Jim Crow laws were in full effect in the military, and blacks who were not being treated fairly at home were being expected to go and die for their country abroad. Baldwin remembers seeing all the different people of Harlem—the young and the old, the good and the bad—suddenly standing together, talking, understanding one another's grief over the poor relations between whites and blacks. This was the real underlying reason for the riot of 1943. The shooting incident at the hotel was merely the spark. The inferno had already been prepared.

Conclusion: The Enduring Relevance of Baldwin's Message

In conclusion, Baldwin's importance as a writer stems from his autobiographical essays, which shed great light on the inner struggles of the African American at a time when America was undergoing a severe crisis of identity. Baldwin captures the inner turmoil of the race relations in Harlem and how the psychological effects of racism can be destructive. He provides three examples of this effect in his essay: the life of his father, his own experiences growing up under his father's shadow and later in the workforce in New Jersey, and the Harlem Riot of 1943. These three examples each reflect one another because at root they are each the same struggle—the conflict between hatred and love, between right and wrong, between justice and injustice. It is the symptom of a schizophrenic mind, soul, and body: the mind is that of Baldwin and his father, the soul is their life and work, and the body is their home and city. Keeping these intact and whole and upright is not easy, as the madness caused by racism can eat one up. Thus, what Baldwin realizes upon his father's death and the night of the riot is that hatred can only be combated by love and a desire to serve the Lord, however one can. What matters is putting in the effort. The fruits may not always be visible (as Baldwin could not always see them in his father's life), but if one does not make any effort at all, the likelihood of anything ever getting better or of one saving one's life, mind, and soul is less than zero.