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ericispublius's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Antisemitism, Death of parent, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism
Minor: Slavery
discodetective's review against another edition
4.75
The first chapters were a little difficult for me to understand, not having read/seen the things he's talking about. Toward the end, I better understood.
He's got fascinating viewpoints on these things! I'd like to read more from him and his contemporaries. There were a few times when I was side-eyeing what he said, but I think it comes from being a [black] man in a [white] man's world.
Moderate: Racial slurs and Racism
creationwing's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Confinement, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, and Classism
Moderate: Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Slavery, Terminal illness, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent
Minor: Alcoholism, Police brutality, and Alcohol
arkwen452's review against another edition
3.25
Like most people, I always find Baldwin's work to be deeply reflective descriptive and poignant to the time when he writes these pieces and our present day. In the beginning, it felt like he was drawing parallels to not only pieces of literature and society, but also to the Points of his young adulthood, and his time in Paris. I found that he expresses his shifts in perspective and motivations very clearly in this book when it came to how he was realizing, and set instances how the white world perceived him; and also how his father perceived him.
I feel like the relationship between him and his father is a continuous theme in his writing as Baldwin expresses that their relationship wasn't the best, and in some instances is described as if they didn't have a relationship at all.
I liked how described his chapter in Paris, and part three of the book where it was as if he was rediscovering his position in a white society, but it was from the perspective of him being simply an American in Paris, rather than an American black man. As an American black man, he knew the role he played or the role he was expected to play as opposed to being in Paris, and being locked up for the simple small crime of being a possession of a stolen item that he didn't even steal himself.
Part one when he was talking about the parallels between literature, and how black Americans are seen in society, or perceived in society as these devilish, dirty and subhuman categories, he decisively constructs the identity of the black American, as being something so on known to the white American, besides the stereotypes that they made up of them.
And it's clear that those stereotypes still exist today; in the sense that there is a notion that we are certain way, when it comes to how we act how we live, how we talk, how we laugh, and how we perceive situations. Instead of really accepting the fact that our reactions Are usually the results of our environment and how society particularly the white American society perceives us. And something still very powerful and present in today's society when it comes to politics that I really appreciate when drawing attention to was how the black American becomes important when it comes to politics because of our numbers, and if they are allowed or able to influence us to support them, then that gives them , a lead in the polls.
But in the same time they make these false empty promises just to get our vote but it's not in the sense that they actually care for us or that they intend to hold up their end of these promises it is simply the matter of using us to meet their ends.
**A not so book related rant: Especially today in 2024 where I believe more than half the world is going to be at this intense voting when it comes to politics there has been this very strong pool to get that only black American votes but also other minority votes to swing in a specific Direction. It's just that it's clear that politics has not caught up to what society these communities actually want to see from his politicians.
Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, and Violence
Minor: Death of parent
artemisg's review against another edition
4.25
God, what a writer. In this essay collection, James Baldwin discusses and analyses blackness and being black in the early twentieth century.
In Part One, he discusses black representation in 1950s media. This section went over my head a bit because I havenāt consumed any of the media he discussed. Nonetheless, I appreciated his critical analysis of misrepresentation and tokenism (prior to the existence of tokenism). In Part Two, he talks about the experience of being black in America, through the lens of communities, himself, and his family. The titular essay Notes of a Native Son made me cry, due to the topic and writing style.
When he was dead I realized that I had hardly ever spoken to him. When he had been dead a long time I began to wish I had.
In Part Three, Baldwin covers his experiences as a black man in Europe, which shone a new light on his experiences in his lifetime, and a new understanding of American identity.
In the context of the Negro problem neither whites nor blacks, for excellent reasons of their own, have the faintest desire to look back; but I think that the past is all that makes the present coherent, and further, that the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.
Overall, an absolutely wonderful essay collection.
Graphic: Racial slurs
Moderate: Racism
jwells's review against another edition
Graphic: Confinement, Racial slurs, and Racism
mildlypretentiousreader's review
5.0
Autobiographical Notes
In my eyes, āAutobiographical Notesā serves as a preface into the next nine remaining short essays. James Baldwin
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Classism
savvylit's review against another edition
4.0
Much of James Baldwin's writing in Notes of a Native Son is deeply profound. He puts into words the unique brand of American hypocrisy and racial disparity. These observations feel especially significant since he published them on the cusp of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Furthermore, many of Baldwin's observations on the persistence of white supremacy still resonate today - nearly 70 years later.
No one writes the way that Baldwin did. This is the second nonfiction work of his that I have read and his voice is just so singular. If you want to know what I mean, here are a few more quotes from Notes of a Native Son for your perusal:
"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster."
"Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle."
"In America, though, life seems to move faster than anywhere else on the globe and each generation is promised more than it will get: which creates, in each generation, a furious, bewildered rage, the rage of people who cannot find solid ground beneath their feet."
Graphic: Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, and Colonisation
honeyvoiced's review
4.5
Graphic: Confinement, Racial slurs, and Racism
Moderate: Antisemitism and Death of parent
Minor: Domestic abuse
amelreads's review
5.0
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Antisemitism, and Death of parent
Moderate: Ableism, Xenophobia, Pregnancy, and Colonisation
Minor: Rape, Slavery, and Forced institutionalization