When violence and hatred interrupt the flow of our lives, we have a tendency to tell ourselves stories to make them easier to digest. Given confusing evidence, we arrange it like puzzle pieces…into a narrative. We take senseless hatred and prejudice and refuse to let it shape our identity. We simply connect it to all the other things happening in our life, like pearls on a string... but sometimes that's not possible. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Sometimes hatred can be so deeply rooted that it seems like you can't overcome it. It becomes an immobile object that hinders acceptance and closure. That immobile object was the world into which James Baldwin was born. The hatred that Baldwin sought to understand and address when he wrote “Notes of a Native Son” was racism. It was bigotry and it was truly horrible ignorance. I'd like to think that writing about the alienation this caused him helped ease some of the pain it created, but that's a naively optimistic sentiment. To truly understand James Baldwin's alienation and where the deadly roots of that problem lie from which it comes, I think you need to first understand the essay as a whole. “Notes of a Native Son” was an autobiographical essay that James Baldwin wrote about the relationship between himself and his stepfather, which he wrote 12 years after his father's death. The essay begins with the death of Baldwin's father in 1943. The funeral was held on Baldwin's birthday, the same day a race riot broke out in Harlem. Baldwin's father was a preacher and a difficult man with a harsh character who had difficulty connecting with others. (which included his son). He died after contracting tuberculosis and refusing food, which he was convinced had been poisoned. Baldwin recalls that when he was young, one of his teachers, a white woman, had taken an interest in him and supported both him and his family; however, Baldwin's father opposed this arrangement, citing a lack of trust in the teacher and his intentions. This initially confused the young Baldwin but as he grew up he gained some understanding of the reasoning behind these actions. While visiting his father at the height of his illness, Baldwin realized again that he had clung to his hatred of his father in order to do so. avoid dealing with the pain of losing him. At his father's funeral, Baldwin was alienated from his father and, indeed, from the grieving process for him... He had no suitable clothes for the funeral, distrusted the preacher leading the funeral, and was even reluctant to see his father. in his coffin. After the funeral, riots began in Harlem, and Baldwin's reflection and mourning had to be interrupted. His thoughts drifted away from his father and towards his city. At this point in his essay, Baldwin's thoughtful writing made me question why grief seemed to be the providence of youth. I guess age deepens all feelings. Including the pain. And for Baldwin, writing about his father's death many years after the fact must have been a painful memory to dredge up. However, Baldwin wasn't worried about these things, he was worried about the state of Harlem, his city. Anger and resentment seeped into the city that shaped Baldwin. In “Notes of a Native Son” Baldwin describes Harlem as violently still. He described it as a city waiting for a culminating event but also longing for an answer or solution to the bigotry and hatred that continually tore at the fabric of the city. "All of it.