Read the following excerpt from "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin:
All of my father's texts and songs, which I had decided were meaningless, were
arranged before me at his death like empty bottles, waiting to hold the meaning
which life would give them for me. This was his legacy: nothing is ever escaped.
That bleakly memorable morning I hated the unbelievable streets and the Negroes
and whites who had, equally, made them that way. But I knew that it was folly, as
my father would have said, this bitterness was folly. It was necessary to hold on to
the things that mattered. The dead man mattered, the new life mattered; blackness
and whiteness did not matter; to believe that they did was to acquiesce in one's
own destruction. Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the
man who hated and this was an immutable law.
It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forevertwo ideas which
seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally
without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes
without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one
could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never,
in one's own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them
with all one's strength.
Analyze the author's message in this excerpt. How do the structure and style contribute to its power? In
particular, consider its use of societal commentary and figurative language. Be sure to include specific
details from the text to support your answer.