Going to Meet the Man

I just finished reading Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin. James Baldwin was a post WWII writer. I read this out of my anthology, so I'm not sure if it is the whole story, but the part I read is a vivid description of a lynching.

I had to read this for my American Lit class, and a girl in my class asked me if I had read it. I had not done the homework for today, so no I hadn't read it. She told me that this story was really intense and it made her cry. If you guys don't already know about me, I am the most empathetic person ever. Everything makes me cry. I cried while watching High School Musical 2. So, I was expecting to do just that.

I began reading during class. The professor was talking about our other reading, the prologue and chapter 1 of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. We had been talking about that for most of the class period. It sort of riled me up because of the person I am, so I stopped paying attention and began reading our other story for the day. I am a sort of shy, introverted person, however, if you disrespect me, if you try to convince me of something that is blatantly wrong, if you are ignorant in my presence, I speak up loud and proud. Haha, this is why I always surprise people so much in debates. The main character in Invisible Man had all of that courage stripped from him at the beginning of the book because that was the time he lived in. I was just mad that people couldn't stand up for themselves, the way that if it happened to me now, I would stand up for myself. 

Back to the lynching. I began reading and it starts of with a white man telling his wife about what happened with him today. He was trying to break up a group of colored people singing outside of a courthouse or something. They were singing an old spiritual, and it really got on his nerves. He ends up beating the "ringleader" of the group of singers to a pulp and then throwing him in jail. The man does not stop singing. In jail, the white man continues to beat the man, and the man continues to sing. He beats him to almost death. After he's done telling this story, he remembers that he heard that song the man was singing before. It was when he went to go watch a lynching. He was young, like eight or something, and didn't know what was happening. The story goes on to vividly describe the lynching, how the man was hanging there, being lit on fire, then castrated. Then the whole crowd goes in with their knifes and stones and kills the man. This viewing intrigued the boy and that's how the story ends. He was intrigued. 

The girl in my class told me that this story made her cry. While I was reading it, I was waiting for the sad part. Before I turned to the last page, I thought there would be more, a sad part, but there wasn't. This story did not make me shed one tear; it made me mad. 

I want to know what made the girl in my class cry. Was it the vivid detail that the author went into when he described the killing? Possibly. Maybe it was how the man just kept beating and beating the man for singing. I don't know. It might be because I'm black, but this story made me so mad for the human race. The fact that there are people who can murder for fun. There are people who watch it for fun. There are people who feel like murder is an appropriate punishment for anything. This is not a capital punishment debate, however. This man was tortured to death. How does that not make people's blood boil? How can they feel nothing? I hate rapists. I hate molesters. I hate murderers. I could never bring myself to watch them be brutally beaten and murdered. to watch them be castrated! And to think that this kind of stuff still happens in the world, even in America, but especially in other countries. People are beaten. Women can't leave their houses. School children have to allow themselves to be felt up or raped just so that they can receive supplies. Burqas. I can't handle this world that we live in. 

I am so unbelievably blessed and just lucky. I was born in California in 1994. I am old enough to vividly remember 9/11, the beginning of the war, George Bush, and everything that happened after, but I was not personally effected by any of it. I have parents who are able to give me whatever I desire. Anything I want they are willing to give. I go to a private university. I live in America! I am black, but the color of my skin has never affected who I am or my abilities to the point that I hate that black people are always trying to victimize themselves. I know that I can do what I want and be what I want. I am so unbelievably blessed and lucky. 

It's not fair and I don't know what else I can say about it besides that. It's not fair. 

What I do know, however, is that God placed me in California in 1994 for a reason and I am not just supposed to just sit back and enjoy in this wonderful Southern Californian heat. I was put here to do something great, even if I'm not Rosa Parks or Toni Morrison, I will rise. I will stand strong. I will make a difference because all of those people who endured the hardshipsand struggle of the past 400 years have enabled me to do so and I refuse not take advantage of that. I refuse.