The Evolution of Race in U.S. Society
Race relations in U.S. society have evolved only in an external way; internally-spiritually-they are much as they always were, with the minority race (whether of color or ethnic origin) feeling spiritually disenfranchised from the larger society. This is clear in a book by the late James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, which concerns the religious experiences in America of a young black man who had been born in the United States. It is equally clear, although seen through a different fictional 'window,' in Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut. Bluebeard concerns what might be termed ethnicity rather than race, for the issues of inequality and a spiritual Diaspora are explored in that book through the character of an Armenian concentration camp survivor looking, through his artwork, for the same sort of spiritual explanations Baldwin's character seeks through religion. In both case, the quest is spiritual. Baldwin himself, no less than his characters, has experienced a disappointing spiritual journey as a black man in white America (Horn, 2004). One of Baldwin's biographers notes that Baldwin's own "black holiness" upbringing was limited, but was, nonetheless, representative of the ways blac
Baldwin had, himself, been an evangelical minister for three years; this, according to Hardy, underlies Baldwin's preoccupation with the theme. However, it is clear also that Baldwin's' pre-occupation with the theme of black religious salvation mimics the conduct of black society regarding the same issue. Where the black holiness religion attempted to form bridges between African or 'pagan' religious sensibilities, a raft of legislation in the mid-1950s-a time when Baldwin was quite prolific, a good ten years before he wrote The Fire Next Time-attempted to form bridges between the black and white experiences in society in general. Kurt Vonnegut is not often thought of as an author of racially based novels. However, his novel Bluebeard explores some of the same ground as Baldwin, not through the experience of U.S.-born blackness, but through alien whiteness of a minority ethnic group. Indeed, in The Fire Next Time, Baldwin recalls that he was just as black after converting as he had been before, and therefore-in U.S. society-doomed to a life of suffering. In some of his later works, Hardy points out, Baldwin reveals that, despite his k people encountered Christianity. That encounter was viewed as flawed (Hardy, 2003) despite the fact that it led to the creation of Afro-Protestantism, widely accepted as an attempt to encompass American culture and society within the black experience (Hardy, 2003). The protagonist (Rabo) in Bluebeard is an Armenian Holocaust survivor whose parents have struggled in vain to adapt to American ways. This leaves Rabo in a peculiar predicament: he must somehow synthesize the misery of his parents' past lives with the expectation that those who emigrate to America will blend in and be successful (Leeds and Reed, 1996, p. 81). Some critics have taken issue with that viewpoint, wondering why a man would spend so much ink
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1268
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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