"Notes of a Native Son" is a story written by a young black man by the name of James Baldwin. In his story, he describes what it was like for him growing up in a racially sensitive area and the troubled relationship he had with his emotionally hardened father. He eventually makes it very clear to the reader the level of hatred he began adopting towards white people as time goes on.
             James begins his story on a day that was very chaotic, to say the least. His father dies, his mother gives birth, and it is his nineteenth birthday. James then moves on to describe events that happen before, during, and after his father passes away. James' father seemed to be a very bitter person; not because that is how he wanted to be, but rather from being a victim of racial degradation over his entire lifetime. When James was in school, he describes how he began to become friends with white people, and over time, invited them to his house. James' father did not act kindly to this. James then writes that his father eventually warned him, saying, "my white friends in high school were not really my friends and that I would see, when I was older, how white people would do anything to keep a Negro down" (Baldwin 56). James then continues his story about his increasingly challenging life. It is apparent that much of his story revolves around his father and his father's death, as James likes to bounce back and forth from his past years to the time of his father's sickness, and eventual death.
             Overall, James did a good job of conveying what life was like for him and his family in that time. It is hard for me to imagine, however, what life was like for a colored person back in those days because racial degradation is nearly non-existent in this day and age, save a few exceptions. Colored people today are just as equal as whites in nearly every realm of society, and I am thankful that America has come so fa
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