Fly In Buttermilk Essay, Research Paper

Response to

“A fly in Buttermilk”

By James Baldwin

James Baldwin is a very perceptive man and usually gets his point across pretty well. In his excerpt “A Fly in Buttermilk”, Baldwin discusses his encounter with a southern family. This family includes a young black male who is enrolled in an all white high school. He asks of the boy’s troubles and discusses his responses.

For the very first words of this excerpt Baldwin states “You can take the child out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the child.” This bases on the whole excerpt. For my own interpretation I took this as a self-reflection upon one own environment. I know personally from my own experiences that the environments in which I was raised in from my parents and friends to my living in a city and a suburb reflect my opinion of what others speak of. What you are accustomed to become the normal and what you are not accustomed to become the odd. For example, in this excerpt Baldwin talks to an old man of the south. Baldwin tells of how he has seen picture of people being hung in the south, but this old man has actually experienced it. These horrible genocides were happening to this old mans friends and family. This could have even been him had he made one wrong step. Baldwin does not know of this and will never know of it. These two are obviously going to have different perspectives on the situation.

When Baldwin talks to the mother and son in the excerpt, he mentions that he had felt that he had not heard the whole truth. For example, the boy tells him that on the first day of school there was merely some name-calling and nothing else. He also neglects to mention any of the names to which he was called. The boy is very quite and studious, but surely he has some insecurities. Also throughout the conversation it seemed as though he hurried to defend his mother’s side, as though he always wanted to keep her in a non-worried state. It seems as though he did not want to let his mother know of any problems he was having because she had so much pride in him. Was she better off not knowing? This I found to be intriguing because I feel that everybody has experienced this emotion at least once. I also find that this is one of the hardest qualities a person can obtain. What quality? The quality that is the opposite of selfishness. Such a quality comes only with great restraint and discipline. It cannot be explained yet everybody knows what it is. I think it is unique how Baldwin gets this out there. Never have I seen a writer put this lesson in such context.

Later still in the conversation Baldwin talks to the boy about leaving and going back to his original school. The boy replies with a strong “NO”. To get by he simply states that he gets into his schoolwork. Later still Baldwin asks him of his friends or if he is making any new one and the end response that Baldwin gets is shocking. The boy tells of how even the kids that are semi-friendly, still he could not really ever be close to. The boy tells of how he never had any problem like that with any of his colored peers. This leads strait back to the fact that an environment that one has been raised in does indeed affect the mental character and set ideals for its attendant. Does this in itself have the strongest impact on racism? Is it no mere coincidence that there are many all white areas and many all black areas of our country even today? I think that this is definitely a serious problem.