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The apex of the civil rights movement did not just give us the great minds of MLK or Malcolm X; it also gave us the well-known writer James Baldwin. Baldwin's affinity for the civil rights movement influenced his decision to write about race relations in American society. Through his writing, Baldwin shares his identity and experiences, which are challenged by segregation and racism. His ability to make readers sympathize with him creates a solid support base for civil rights. In his works, “A Report from Occupied Territory,” “Letter From a Region in My Mind,” “Stranger in the Village,” “My Dungeon Shook,” and “Notes from a Native Son,” he uses various literary devices such as identity, tone, paradox, anecdotes, point of view, and language to make a case for America's underlying irony of personal liberty and freedom. In James Baldwin’s essays, he utilizes realism and shared experiences to convey the racial prejudice felt by black people in twentieth-century American society. James Baldwin’s essays describe the realistic depiction of life in Harlem and what that means for the African American identity. Baldwin's encounters with police brutality left a significant impression on his life. His allusion to slavery in his essay “A Report from Occupied Territory” creates a powerful image in the reader's mind, stating, “The law is meant to be my servant and not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer” (2). Baldwin equates the government's upholding of police brutality to slavery, confirming that black people are not free in American society. Systemic racism perpetuated by the police force changes how African Americans view freedom. Although they are in a “free” country, they always have to be conscious of possible dangers they might face due to racial prejudice. This way, Baldwin leads the readers to question America's notion of freedom. In the same way, systemic racism has affected Baldwin's life; it also has impacted his family's. Baldwin's anecdote of his childhood, where his brother shed tears, contrasts with his current life. Baldwin remembers, “his tears, which my hand or your grandmother’s so easily wiped away. But no one’s hand can wipe away those tears he sheds invisibly today….” (“My Dungeon Shook” 1). The society Baldwin’s brother grew up in shaped him into becoming a dejected man. This creates a powerful image in the reader's mind where the white community left permanent scars on him that could not be wiped away. His identity as a black man in Harlem limited the opportunities offered to him. As well as being his undoing, society breaks a man who succumbs to its expectations. As Baldwin writes this letter to his nephew, he wants to guarantee that he doesn't face a similar identity crisis as many in Harlem did. This is evident in his repetition of the word “love” in his essay “My Dungeon Shook.” He wants to make sure his nephew, James, knows he is loved and loves others in return despite being offered the short end of the stick. Just as he did, Baldwin calls his nephew to find meaning in life other than what society expects of him. His reference to the “countrymen” in his well-meaning paradox, “It is the innocence which constitutes the crime,” (“My Dungeon Shook” 1) explains his insistence on loving white people. In return for accepting these people with love, Baldwin hopes for self-acceptance. White people need to face their ignorance for black people to be freed from their shackles. By offering readers insight into what life was like for black people in Harlem, Baldwin shows prejudice's effect on identity. Since religion played a large part in James Baldwin's life, he often used religion to show how you can't find acceptance in white culture in his essays. Initially, Baldwin turned to the church because of the circumstance he was in, but upon further speculation, he realized that even the church was tied back to his oppressors. In Baldwin's essay “Letter From a Region in My Mind,” he asks rhetorical questions concerning his faith, wondering, “Was Heaven, then, to be merely another ghetto?”(1). Baldwin asks the question to the readers in a non-defensive way, helping the reader be open to understanding his way of thinking. His questioning of whether heaven really exists stems from the racism prevalent in Christianity. If the god he prays for truly cares for him, why does he allow the black man to suffer at the behest of the white man? This is evident in Baldwin’s biblical allusion that shows how white people view him as the “descendant of ham,”(“Letter From a Region in My Mind” 1) a justification used for years of slavery. Although he was devout to the church, its principles went against his making. By throwing in an allusion to Ham's curse, Baldwin reminds readers that the god of this church was white, and he did not favor minorities. The white man in a sense, stirred Baldwin’s path to the church and his path out of the church by the ignorance of their actions. This showed that Baldwin could not find and did not want to find acceptance in white society. Furthermore, James Baldwin’s use of point of view appeals to more people by giving multiple perspectives through shared experiences. His contrast when describing systemic racism in the third person rather than talking in the first person makes readers better understand him. In “A Report from Occupied Territory,” Baldwin states, “The government which can force me to pay my taxes and force me to fight in its defense anywhere in the world does not have the authority to say that it cannot protect my right to vote or my right to earn a living or my right to live anywhere I choose” (2). This sharp contrast between the previous third-person point of view to the first-person point of view makes Baldwin's experience the reader's experience. Adopting Baldwin’s experience sets an angry tone because the essay changes from being about “them” to being about “me.” The reader can then identify with Baldwin's anger and resentment by sympathizing with him. Another use of point of view by Baldwin is his clever use of the second person. Baldwin writes, “When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did, and it did not apply to white people at all” (“Letter From a Region in My Mind” 1). His use of “we” here addresses two different sets of audiences. The first “we” is intended for everyone, both white and black, while the second “we” is intended for other black people. In making this choice, Baldwin clearly states his opinion on white acceptance. This quote supports his claim that the black man will not be free until the white man is free from their ignorance because it reinstates the unawareness and the power white people have. Point of view allowed Baldwin to share his experience with the audience. James Baldwin also uses language, such as slang, to help share his experience with the way words can affect his community. Slang is often put in his writing to make it out of place. In his essay “A Report from Occupied Territory,” he refers to the violence committed by the police as “a dishonorable wound, not earned in a foreign jungle but in the domestic one—not that this would make any difference at all to the nevertheless insuperably patriotic policeman—and it proves that he is a ‘bad n*****’”(1). Baldwin’s essay is mainly written with a high vocabulary, and it's evident that he is a good writer; his choice of using slang in his essays is to highlight the word in question. His use of the n-word makes readers feel it’s ridiculous and uncomfortable. Baldwin wrote it like that to call attention to the usage of the n-word. A white person has never had to experience being called a racial slur the same way a black person has; adding a racial slur the way Baldwin wrote it gives them some insight into what it feels like. This way, Baldwin makes every reader understand its implications. Another way Bladwin uses language to expose the prejudice faced by the black community is by quoting certain words. The use of quotations and italics in “the signs that say ‘White Ladies’ and ‘Colored Women…’”(“Letter From a Region in My Mind” 2) emphasizes the difference in experience black people face compared to white people. Italicizing women clarifies to the audience that white women were referred to as ladies, but black women were not afforded the same privilege. This shows the dehumanization and lack of respect black people face subtly by grouping the two words together. Baldwin's heavy use of different language types helps convey his experience as a black man in America. James Baldwin can gain sympathy and understanding from different racial groups in American society about the black struggle for civil rights by writing essays using realism and shared experiences.