Structural Racism In James Baldwin's Stranger In The Village

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James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village” is an essay about his experience visiting a village in Switzerland. The focus of his essay is how African Americans are treated in America and Europe. Baldwin also explains the role African Americans play in American society and the effects of structural racism on African Americans. Structural racism is racism that comes from institutions or the government instead of an individual’s feelings. The essay comments on the fact that America is less white and America can’t turn its back on African Americans. An article by The Atlantic titled “Is America Repeating the Mistakes of 1968” also talks about racism in America and its effects on society. Its main point is how America needs to confront racism or it will revert to the terrible violence of 1968. The point Baldwin is …show more content…

“During the late 1960s, the United States saw firsthand what could happen when institutional racism was allowed to persist. The string of racial violence Americans have witnessed in the past three years has brought the nation to a comparable historical inflection point” (Zelizer). The article talks about how Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson created a commission to investigate and research what led to the violent race riots in Detroit and Newark and the commission published a report about structural racism, and the structural racism has a lot to do with the police. The article talks about an inflection point because many people today feel like police have treated African Americans unfairly, which has caused many protests. In “Stranger in the Village” Baldwin talks about the “terrorization” of black people that happened in the past and that happened during the time of him writing the essay. There are many people today who feel like African Americans are terrorized by the

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