James Baldwin: "Notes of a Native Son"

In the story, "Notes of a Native Son", written by James Baldwin is about a father and son relationship towards the hatred of race relations in midcentury America. James Baldwin was born in Harlem of 1942 and he was a preacher. He and his father had an odd relationship. They did not get along and the only spoken words that he could remember were when his father had asked him, you would rather write than preach?" His father was also a preacher who knew everything from Louis Armstrong to Sodom and Gamorrah. His father hated the way things were going in Harlem because he grew up where violence and hatred between blacks and whites took place. His father always had his guard up especially when it came to the Whites. He could not trust or surround himself around them because he had felt they could not be trusted. He also told the narrator that his white friends are not his true friends and that they would do anything to keep a black person down. Coming from this, the narrator could not believe his words because he thought they were descent people. However, one day after the fourth visit of a restaurant, he had noticed that Black or Negros were not to be served. From this he realized, that the Whites were no longer descent people.

Though the narrator did not have a good memory about his father, he wished he knew his father the way others felt about him. Living in Harlem and his father saying hatred things on Whites that were true were difficult between their relationships. It made it difficult for them to agree on things and to really have a father and son relationship. His father was born in New Orleans and was of the first generation of free men so he knew the result of violence toward hatred between blacks and whites. The narrator concluded that even if he and his father had their differences, he had learned to abide to his actions and to have found the reasons why people cling on to their hates. It is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with the pain. He had realized that his father wanted to show him off before the members of the church and that he had not been cruel. This relates to his relationship towards his father because the blacks and whites will always have their differences and that hatred will continue to grow. Also, the most important thing is mankind; to appreciate the things that are in front of you because once it is gone, it is gone forever. His father had died of Tuberculosis and for the sake of the narrator; it was hard seeing his father lying in the casket because he knew they did not have a close relationship. The narrator wished that he could have known his father so that he could get answers but now it is in the hands of his future.