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Group 4 Peter Azra Rudy Estrada Ben Valentine Rye Waldman Me and my Native Son “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin was published in the November 1955 issue of Harper’s magazine under the title “Me and My House,” but these two versions are not exactly the same. “Notes” is a dually focused essay, focusing on Baldwin’s relationship with his father, and focusing on Baldwin’s relationship with white America as well. This essay, in its pure form would appeal to anti-segregationists, but would infuriate many white Americans. In order for this essay to appeal to Harper’s Mmagazine’s primary audience, white upper class Americans, the focus of Baldwin’s relationship with white America was repressed, bringing out only the focus of Baldwin’s relationship with his father. Thumbing through Harper’s, it is clear that this is a magazine for upper class white Americans. Harper’s advertises vacations to foreign destinations, large sets of books, and color televisions. All of these costly items are consumed mostly by upper class Americans. There is even an essay entitled “If we’re so rich, what’s eating us?” that focuses on national economics, a topic that lower class people are generally not as concerned with. In the entire November issue, there is not a single picture of a black person, and Baldwin’s essay is the only essay that mentions race. In the January 1956 issue, there is an article that tells of how southerners support segregation, which is accompanied by the disclaimer, “The point of view expressed in this article is far removed from that of the Editors.”(Jan 39) Needless to say, there were many letters in response to this article in the following issues. Race is a topic that is very under-represented in Harper’s in relation to vacation packages. One of the main effects Harper’s gets from editing Baldwin’s essay is on changing the focus from an essay with a purpose to a story of Baldwin’s experience. Most of Baldwin’s analysis, views, and opinions relate to the status of society; especially views on white America and the effects of racism on a man. For example, in the beginning of the essay, Baldwin describes the surrounding atmosphere as being filled with, “the spoils of injustice, anarchy, discontent, and hatred were all around us” (“Notes”63). This line was edited out to keep Harper’s, white American audience, from seeing the problems of a segregated America, as Baldwin writes about in his essay, “The White Man’s Guilt,” in which he describes white Americans hiding behind a curtain to hide from the problem of segregated America. In “Notes,” Baldwin wrote, “I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now would be for me an awful thing to live with and that the bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me” (“Notes” 65) but the version in Harper’s with simply, “I had discovered the weight of white people in the world,” but does not elaborate on this topic as to what he discovers. The reader is only left with a simple story of Baldwin’s experience and his views on his father, but not the more extreme views on white Americans. A similar example of editing of Baldwin’s analysis can be seen where Baldwin describes his visits to a restaurant as having, “…some dreadful scenes were subsequently enacted in that restaurant” (“Notes”69). Harper’s again ends a paragraph simply with the fact that Baldwin was refused service in a restaurant for his color, but it doesn’t add his response to this. Harper’s takes out the purpose and focus of Baldwin’s essay, thus turning a protest against racism into a simple narrative. Comparing “Notes of a Native Son” side by side with “Me and My House,” it is clear that there is a similarity between the parts that appear in “Notes” and do not appear in Harper’s. One section, was published in Collected Essays as follows: The situation in Harlem had grown bad enough for clergymen, policemen, educators, politicians, and social workers to assert in one breath that there was no ‘crime wave’ and to offer, in the very next breath, suggestions as to how to combat it. These suggestions always seemed to involve playgrounds, despite the fact that racial skirmishes were occurring in the playgrounds, too. Playground or not, crime wave or not, the Harlem police force had been augmented in March, and the unrest grew- perhaps, in fact, partly as a result of the ghetto’s instinctive hatred of policemen (“Notes” 73). However, this section as published in Harper’s was reduced to “The Harlem police force had been augmented in March, and the unrest grew.” Readers of Harper’s may have been the “clergymen, policemen, educators, politicians, and social workers” (“Notes”73) that Baldwin wrote about in this paragraph, and would not like to read about their failures to admit that an obvious “crime wave” existed and further that their proposed solution to this problem was useless. Baldwin’s comment about the hatred of policemen is also what few readers of Harper’s would have liked to read about. This hatred was undoubtedly the result of unfair treatment and brutality by the policemen towards the residents of the ghetto, but this ugly situation was one that most readers would rather ignore, like the “crime wave” that, in the minds of some, didn’t exist but had solutions to. The next large section removed from “Notes,” about a page in length, begins with Baldwin talking in religious terms, at first about his father’s eulogy, but then about racial tensions. One line in particular from this section is “It was the Lord who knew of the impossibility every parent in the room faced: how to prepare the child for the day when the child would be despised” (“Notes” 78). This sentence is clearly stating that simply blacks were despised by the society of the time. Baldwin then continues, in the original version, to describe racial tensions in terms of poison and antidote, and suggests, “perhaps poison should be fought with poison” (“Notes” 78). This section, made even stronger by its religious language, is not one that many white readers of Harper’s would have liked to read either, and was therefore not published, removing even more of the part of the essay having to do with race. Perhaps the most noticeable change made to Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” by the editors of Harper’s is the new title in the magazine, “Me and My House…” The essay itself is stripped of its commentary on the American race situation within the story of Baldwin’s father. With the reduction of Baldwin’s analysis in “Notes” to side comments in “Me and My House…” the points made about America, as suggested by the title including the word “Native,” Baldwin’s essay becomes a narration of the struggles of a boy and his father. “Me and My House…” as a title removes the dual stories that “Notes of a Native Son” infer. When
Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” was published in the November 1955
issue of Harper’s, the “Me and My House…” alterations reflect
the audience of Harper’s. The magazine itself showed no
evidence of appealing to the 1950’s African American; the
advertisements present and the article topics were oriented for the
typical middle to upper class white American. The deletion of much
of Baldwin’s analysis of American interracial relations and
Works Cited Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84 Baldwin, James “Me and My House.” Harper’s Nov. 1955: 54-61 Waring, Thomas R. “The Southern Case Against Desegregation.” Harper’s Jan. 1956: 39+ |