What I found most interesting about Notes of a Native Son is that Baldwin tells us that racism in America isn't just due to the prejudice of white people against black people, but due to an inherent flaw in American ideology. America's complicated history of owning slaves and marginalizing various immigrant sectors to industrialize has created in Americans a natural tendency towards the subjugation and belittlement of certain members of its own society. However, what many Americans fail to realize is that these marginalized groups are still part of America and that by oppressing them, we are oppressing ourselves, our own society. As Baldwin says, "Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves; the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for our annulment of his" (26). In other words, by dehumanizing members of our country, our country as a whole is dehumanized in the process. America can't be the land of freedom and hope if we enslave or marginalize parts of our own population.
According to Baldwin, the only way to even attempt to correct this fundamental flaw in American ideology is to face our history head on. We can't brush the dirty aspects of our history under the rug and choose to only highlight our proud moments. We must also face that our history of prejudice is more complicated than that of hate and fear. Like most relationships in life, our relationship with slavery is multifaceted and confusing. In Baldwin's words, "It is not simply the relationship of the oppressed to oppressor, of master to slave, nor is it motivated merely by hatred; it is also, literally and morally, a blood relationship, perhaps the most profound reality of the American experience, and we cannot begin to unlock it until we accept how very much it contains the force and anguish and terror of love" (42). Slaves were oppressed and treated like possessions, but, at the same time, some slaves were loved by their owners and some even raised and loved their owners' children. Some owners, whether or not these were consensual sexual relationships, even fathered the children of slaves. So, as dysfunctional and abusive as it was, America's relationship with slavery is not a simple one; it contains many shades of many different emotions. Until this relationship is looked squarely in the face, America has no hope of healing its broken core.
Our tendency to marginalize has, as Baldwin reminds us in his book, affected other groups as well, quite notably Jewish Americans. Throughout history, Jews have suffered persecution and unfortunately, they have suffered here in America as well. During our history, Jews have been relegated to the status of "other" in our country and therefore have enjoyed less equality and freedom than Christian Americans. Jews have had to work against a prevailing stigma in America, much like black Americans have. However, instead of feeling a sort of kinship with one another, "the Jew has been taught - and too often, accepts - the legend of Negro inferiority; and the Negro, on the other hand, has found nothing in his experience with Jews to counteract the legend of Semitic greed" (Baldwin 71). So, rather than banding together or commiserating, Jewish Americans and black Americans have a history of not trusting one another. Both groups wish to move up the American social ladder and neither believes that association with the other will do anything to help with that ascension. If anything, Jews believe that associations with blacks will only hurt their chances of improving their lots in life and vice versa. The saddest aspect of this mutual distrust is that "when the Negro hates the Jew as a Jew he does so partly because the nation does and in much the same painful fashion that he hates himself" (Baldwin 78). The same can be said of Jews in America with regard to black Americans. Since both groups are American, they have been taught to demonize at least one sector of their own society "so there seems no hope for better Negro-Jewish relations without a change in the American pattern" (Baldwin 73). In essence, this American cycle of looking down on and marginalizing certain groups that our society categorizes as "other" will not stop until we admit to this deficiency in our ideology and seek to change it.
Changing our American ideology will not only affect minority groups, but will affect Americans as a whole. It is hard to be proud Americans if being American means that we have to subjugate other citizens to achieve success and power. By hurting sectors of society, we are hurting ourselves, as we are all Americans and all have to live with the fear and loathing that comes from such a destructive mentality. So, seeking to change our fundamental American value system won't just improve the lives of black Americans, but all Americans. After all, "Negroes are Americans and their destiny is the country's destiny" (Baldwin 43).
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