Analysis Of The Fire Next Time By James Baldwin

White Americans have enjoyed a comfortable life living in America since the Declaration of Independence was founded. The history we have of this country is that the men who founded it only wanted the best for us and would lead our future towards that. While this had been happening, slavery continued to thrive in America, with more and more slaves coming in to help plantations with their dirty work. James Baldwin’s essay, The Fire Next Time, explains what this country was actually about. Baldwin explains in his essay that from the white people who founded this country to the white people now, there has been a constant stream of lies about the real history of white people in America and are not subject to the oppression blacks have always faced.

Colonized in the 17th century, America started off as place with valuable resources and land that the Europeans wanted. Even though America was just beginning to take form, slavery was still a form of labor that was used even back then. The expansion of America through the 18th and 19th century was a very prosperous time, as it was shaping to be a dominant country, but the rest of the world couldn’t see what was really happening on the inside. Slavery started to ascend as the cheapest form of labor, with slaves being African Americans and working dirt cheap on plantations for owners who had no remorse for the well-being of the slaves. Even though slavery was a problem throughout this time, white Americans still believed that the reason for all of this was to continue making sure that America had thrived, even with horrible acts happening within the country. The reason for this, as Baldwin explains in his essay, is that white Americans have a skewed view of the history of America, only seeing the portion of history in which good happened, while not seeing the other side of things. However, as Baldwin explains, African Americans have seen and gone through the awful changes that white people put on them and shouldn’t have to rely on them for everything. Baldwin’s views of white Americans and African Americans have been true from the first day this country was

Alexander explains the process of mass incarceration, which was another form of slavery and is keeping blacks very oppressed from the outside world. Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Regan both had parts in creating the war on drugs, which was meant to put all the people using drugs into prison. The war on drugs put a record number of people in prison, with a large amount of the prison population being black people. Baldwin says that white people won’t face the cruel conditions blacks have always been accustomed too, and that is clearly shown with mass incarceration, as the population of blacks in prison was much higher than whites, even though blacks have a disproportionate amount of people in America compared to white people. While the politicians and police officers were trying their best to put African Americans into prison, they preached that these laws were ‘color blind’. To entice the police officers, cash incentives were given to them when they put people using drugs in prison. After the prisoners are released, they are still oppressed severely, such as being denied legally to obtain employment, housing, and many other things. While African Americans were being arrested, it caused a lot of grief for the families of these prisoners; however, many white people saw the