Status Updates From James Baldwin : Collected E...

Heavy, interesting stuff.

Stand alone essays, therefore easy to take a break between novels.
Smart guy, this Baldwin...

In the Harlem Ghetto chapter, Baldwin writes of religion, the press, advertising, and the relationship of Black people, Jews and the white American gentile. The latter gave me a lot to think about, and the role in which each plays as a scapegoat in one part of the country or another.

From Notes of a Native Son, Everybody’s Protest Novel: on the protest novel, Baldwin writes, “They emerge for what they are: a mirror of our confusion, dishonesty, panic, trapped and immobilized in the sunlit prison of the American dream” (16).

“I want to be an honest man and a good writer.” Before delving more deeply into his collected works, it is clear that Baldwin loves America and hoped for better in terms of racial progress, and I hope to gain a better insight into his experiences.