Explanation:
Stranger In The Village Summary “When, beneath the black mask, a human being begins to make himself felt one cannot escape a certain awful wonder as to what kind of human being it is.”(4). In his essay, “Stranger in the Village”, James Baldwin writes about the major differences that African Americans experience in Europe and America. Throughout the essay, Baldwin describes how the Europeans are naive about the black man. The outrage and amusement that Baldwin feels throughout his visit causes the overwhelming realization of the history of the African American. Before arriving in a small village in Switzerland, Baldwin had already been told that his presence would be startling because black people were rarely seen. The children would scream “Neger!”(2) when they saw him passing, men sometimes blamed him for stealing, and most of the woman looked away when he was in sight. He felt an innocence to their genuine wonder and that they didn't mean to be unkind or racist. Baldwin states that being in the village, he felt he “was simply a living wonder” (2) and not treated as a human being. The people touched him as if his skin color would rub off and compared his hair to “the color of tar”(2). They way the people treated him was innocent but it still reminded him of all of the intentional …show more content…
The anger and amusement that James Baldwin feels throughout his visit to a Swiss village develop into deeper thoughts about the history of African Americans. The unintentional racism that he faced in the small village led to his awareness of how degrading thoughts of non-whites occur in parts of the world outside of the U.S. “Stranger in the Village” ends with the strong statement, “This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.”(8) This essay shows how much history can affect the way people treat other races and other
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