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The Fire Next Time Analysis

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“We can make America what America must become, (Baldwin 10) ” James Baldwin said in the novel The Fire Next Time written in the early 1960s.. The Fire Next Time is composed of two personal letters speaking of Baldwin’s experience with racism in his everyday life and the oppression and mindset that comes through in culture he was raised into. Baldwin speaks of many issues surrounding racism like, the preconception of what an African-American person is suppose to act like, the ideals of religion in relation to racism and loss of it’s meaning to him and the movement towards a liberated America. Baldwin speaks of how we can make America what America must become through acceptance, understanding and a love for our own cultures as well of the love …show more content…

The same issues that Baldwin wrote about affecting his life in the 1960s are still occurring nearly 50 years later. “Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.” (BlackLIvesMatter.com) It speaks volumes in the fact alone that we still need to have organizations to stand up and protect nearly 13% of the population (Census.gov) from being a target in politics and stereotypes and currently the huge issue with Black lives and law enforcement. This was also a topic in Baldwin’s life when he mentioned that he has also noticed many Black Americans being mistreated. Baldwin wrote how the police were“...totally unprepared, as is the way with American hemen, for anything that could not be settled with a club or a fist or a gun. I might have pitied them if I had not found myself in their hands so often and discovered, through ugly experience, what they were like when they held the power,” (Baldwin 48,49) It is more the evident that we must stand up for our brothers and sister, no matter what are race is. As children, we were all taught right from wrong and as a nation we know that these acts of discrimination and social injustices are wrong. We must rise together as one, loving ourselves and others, speaking up when we know something is not just and educating ourselves of cultures that are not ours. Only then can we make America what America must become. Only then can we honestly say that America is

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