Charles Baldwin Letter To America Analysis
Baldwin uses a tone that is not anger, but that is conquering. He calls out the people or “countrymen” of America, for their ignorance and their claim of innocence:
Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens in the London of more than a hundred years ago. I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, "No, this is not true. How bitter you are," but I am writing this letter to you to try to tell you something about how to handle them, for most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions under which you were born for I was there. Your countrymen were not there and haven't made it yet. Your grandmother was also there and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocent check with her. She isn't hard to find. Your countrymen don't know that she exists either, …show more content…
At the time, the social conditions in London were very poor, similar to the social conditions in America. Baldwin also uses the one hundred years idea to signify and reflect on the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which was in the height of the Jim Crow America. The Jim Crow laws were the state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Baldwin explains that there is a lack of progress in the United States, which the Jim Crow laws definitely abolished the physical segregation of facilities. He talks about how white people are blind to injustice and how subtle it is. In this excerpt, Baldwin explains how the white people of America believe that they are still bitter because of the injustice they know that they, as African Americans, have been through. The white people consider themselves to be innocent, when they are the ones causing the pain and
Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens in the London of more than a hundred years ago. I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, "No, this is not true. How bitter you are," but I am writing this letter to you to try to tell you something about how to handle them, for most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions under which you were born for I was there. Your countrymen were not there and haven't made it yet. Your grandmother was also there and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocent check with her. She isn't hard to find. Your countrymen don't know that she exists either, …show more content…
At the time, the social conditions in London were very poor, similar to the social conditions in America. Baldwin also uses the one hundred years idea to signify and reflect on the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which was in the height of the Jim Crow America. The Jim Crow laws were the state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Baldwin explains that there is a lack of progress in the United States, which the Jim Crow laws definitely abolished the physical segregation of facilities. He talks about how white people are blind to injustice and how subtle it is. In this excerpt, Baldwin explains how the white people of America believe that they are still bitter because of the injustice they know that they, as African Americans, have been through. The white people consider themselves to be innocent, when they are the ones causing the pain and