A Talk to Teachers

“The society in which we live is desperately menaced, not by Khrushchev, but from within.”

On the heels of stating that America is a country in a revolutionary situation, Baldwin deepens what he means by that. He reminds readers that America has an internal enemy that is far more menacing and lethal than any outside force. He creates a metaphor of an internal monster, a proverbial beast in the belly that Americans need to fight together.

“To any citizen of this country who figures himself as responsible—and particularly those of you who deal with the minds and hearts of young people—must be prepared to ‘go for broke.’ Or to put it another way, you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance.”

Baldwin uses the colloquialism “go for broke” to emphasize that this is not a fight to occur in the lofty halls of academia or the jaded corridors of political centers. He is speaking in informal language and utilizing local phrases to help readers recognize that this fight is for every American citizen because everyone is being harmed by the disjointed and prejudicial way history is being taught. In speaking in terms that could be considered slang, Baldwin is making his essay a piece of dialogue between himself and his fellow man, one in which he can press for urgency.

“Since I am talking to schoolteachers and I am not a teacher myself, and in some ways am fairly easily intimidated, I beg you to let me leave that and go back to what I think to be the entire purpose of education in the first place.”

Baldwin uses concession here as a literary device to build greater credibility. Instead of pretending that he is an educator and can therefore tell educators what they can or cannot do, he makes an overture of humility by reminding his audience that he is not a teacher and yielding to their greater knowledge. However, as someone who understands that there is inequality ravaging education, he can speak as an authority in that sense, and can therefore provide a sense of purpose.

“Man is a social animal. He cannot exist without a society. A society, in turn, depends on certain things which everyone within that society takes for granted. Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society.”

Baldwin likens humankind to a pack of animals that cannot live without one another. This image draws attention to the inherently social aspect of humanity, suggesting that no battle is fought alone and no victory is enjoyed alone.

“Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of the Third Reich, became barbarians. The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.”

Baldwin uses dichotomies to explore the extreme divisions that exist within education. In using the Third Reich as an example, he explores both the illuminating nature of education and the potential for brainwashing. Education can teach students to think, but it can also manipulate them into believing that some aspects of history and civics are more important than others, especially if those aspects align with the status quo.

“The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not.”

This passage encapsulates Baldwin’s core argument: Society uses education to mold individuals and teach allegiance to the status quo. The Third Reich’s brainwashing and indoctrination is an extreme example of this. Baldwin argues that education should instead allow individuals to develop cognitively enough to question not only education itself but society at large. The result of a good education should be individuals who think for themselves.

“What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it—at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change.”

Baldwin explores irony by discussing how societies really want a citizenry that follows its rules, seemingly without question. The word “education” is the ironic word being used, as its traditional definition means learning, but its definition in white America is manipulation so that children will not see the extent to which society is divided and oppressed. Education in this case means learning, but only up to a point. It does not mean total illumination.

“Now, if what I have tried to sketch has any validity, it becomes thoroughly clear, at least to me, that any Negro who is born in this country and undergoes the American educational system runs the risk of becoming schizophrenic. On the one hand he is born in the shadow of the stars and stripes and he is assured it represents a nation which has never lost a war. He pledges allegiance to that flag which guarantees ‘liberty and justice for all.’ He is part of a country in which anyone can become president, and so forth.”

Symbolism is used here to drive home the fact that there are a mass of contradictions in America. Students learn under the fluttering red, white, and blue flag that symbolizes liberty and justice for all, yet the distribution of those rights is far from equitable. Students pledge their allegiance to a flag that promises a vast number of liberties, yet it fails to deliver many of them.

“He is assumed by the republic that he, his father, his mother, and his ancestors were happy, shiftless, watermelon-eating darkies who loved Mr. Charlie and Miss Ann, that the value he has as a black man is proven by one thing only—his devotion to white people. If you think I am exaggerating, examine the myths which proliferate in this country about Negroes.”

Baldwin spotlights the stereotype of Black Americans eating watermelons to remind his readers that such caricatures are used to make an entire population seem lazy and shiftless. Using the stereotype in his own writing is a simple method of communicating the racist tropes that are piled onto Black Americans, as if to prove that they are too uninformed to utilize the rights that Baldwin is also pushing for them to be educated about.

“But a black child, looking at the world around him, though he cannot know quite what to make of it, is aware that there is a reason why his mother works so hard, why his father is always on edge. He is aware that there is some reason why, if he sits down in the front of the bus, his father or mother slaps him and drags him to the back of the bus. He is aware that there is some terrible weight on his parents’ shoulders which menaces him. And it isn’t long—in fact it begins when he is in school—before he discovers the shape of his oppression.”

The essence of an argumentative essay—of using reasoning and facts to support a statement—is exemplified in this one passage. Baldwin uses the awareness that any child possesses to support his reasoning that Black children are aware, from an early stage, that their parents’ struggles are exasperated by racist infrastructure and rules, such as moving to the back of the bus regardless of how many other people are on the bus.

“I still remember my first sight of New York. It was really another city when I was born—where I was born. We looked down over the Park Avenue streetcar tracks. It was Park Avenue, but I didn’t know what Park Avenue meant downtown. The Park Avenue I grew up on, which is still standing, is dark and dirty. No one would dream of opening a Tiffany’s on that Park Avenue, and when you go downtown you discover that you are literally in the white world.”

Park Avenue stands out as an archetype of all things posh and white. Baldwin creates a compare-and-contrast scenario between the Park Avenue he was familiar with as a child—the Park Avenue of dilapidated buildings and squalor—and the Park Avenue that is emblematic of high society in New York City. Park Avenue of white America is the Park Avenue of wealthy America, a wealthy urban archetype that rises like a trophy in the city skyline, awarding its own wealth with a recognition of wealth.

“Later on when you become a grocery boy or messenger and you try to enter one of those buildings a man says, ‘Go to the back door.’ Still later, if you happen by some odd chance to have a friend in one of those buildings, the man says, ‘Where’s your package?’ Now this by no means is the core of the matter. What I’m trying to get at is that by the time the Negro child has had, effectively, almost all the doors of opportunity slammed in his face, and there are very few things he can do about it.”

Baldwin uses the example of a Black person with a service job being profiled even when not working. A messenger or grocery boy is demeaned by being forced to use the back door. This same individual, on the off chance that they enter the same building to see a friend, is still considered only of service and not an individual who exists apart from that service. This constant objectification breeds anger and resentment.

“They really hate you—really hate you because in their eyes (and they’re right) you stand between them and life. I want to come back to that in a moment. It is the most sinister of the facts, I think, which we now face.”

In writing about the interactions between those who work in service positions and the white people who dismiss them almost on sight, Baldwin crafts a narrative that takes the reader through an example of the day. He creates a possible interaction that reminds the reader that the countless interactions between the servers and the bosses are inhuman and racist at their core. This narrative of possible interactions allows readers to understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of anonymity.