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James Baldwin's Essay 'Stranger In The Village'

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“Dealing with an Unstoppable Change”
The essay “Stranger in the Village” by James Baldwin highlights how a group of individuals that are cut off from the world can be so ignorant. James describes himself going to a strange village in Switzerland and nobody in the village have never seen a person of color before. He further goes on about the racial experiences he had while staying in Switzerland and how ignorant the natives were to someone that is different from the majority. Baldwin’s essay brought a new point of view to racial inequality in minority groups.
I could relate to James’s story the most because I was also the minority in an environment that was new to me. For most of my school career, I went to a school where I was different from the rest of the population for a long time. My situation has some similarities to Baldwin because we both know how hard it is to relate to people that don't look to you as the same or equal. …show more content…

For example,“The villagers wonder less about the texture of my hair than they did then, and wonder rather more about me.” This excerpt from the essay showed how the villagers started to have an open mind for James and stopped looking upon him as a complete stranger. This opened mindedness displays the racial progress that was made by the native people and this could lead to less ignorance for the unknown in the future. This same progression happened in my school because I watched how my school turned a minority population into the majority. This growth represents how people change their mindset in order to keep up with the advancements in the world. Even though Baldwin did not have this luxury, I finally felt less set apart from the group and more a part of the community as a whole. This is mainly because my school did the work to make me feel included instead of having me to conform to the main population of the

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