Analysis Of James Baldwin's I Am Not Your Negro '

James Baldwin accepts to be true that “America became white - the people who, as they claim, “settled” the country became white - because of the necessity of denying the Black presence and justifying the Black subjugation.” The term subjugation means to defeat or gain complete control and obedience over someone or something by the use of force. This was how white people diminished any ounce of black presence in America, or how Baldwin puts it, the specific portion of the Northern American continent that demands to be called America. If you were able to pay the literal price of the ticket to America, as well as prove you were strong enough to survive and were a hard worker regardless of your background, you could come to America and be free.Or so you thought. The price to become white was no laughing matter, according to Baldwin, nor was it something one brought up in a casual …show more content…
Film director Raoul Peck discovered Baldwin’s “I Am Not Your Negro”, a documentary-styled essay with text from Baldwin’s “Remember This House”. Though it was incomplete due to Baldwin’s sudden passing from cancer, the author recalls the gruesome deaths of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, and Medgar Evers, his close friends. Peck’s film and Baldwin’s words brought to light the daily struggles of black people with institutions, such as schools, workplaces, prisons and correctional facilities, hospitals and so forth. These ideas are also present in Netflix’s original film “13th”, a documentary by Ava DuVernay, which is about the 13th amendment, mass incarcerations and civil rights movements. The documentary discussed the mistreatment and enslavement of blacks, especially black males in society as well as in prison. Black males were being arrested, and when cops were questioned, no one had an excuse or reason for their actions. No one really knew why, but black people had to be locked up for good, never to be seen