According to “Keywords for African American Studies”, two essential keywords within African American Studies are, unsurprisingly, “diaspora” and “race”. These keywords are at the foundation of the binary between Black male identity and the United States. Alluding to the diaspora and focusing on race, in this excerpt from “The Fire Next Time”, James Baldwin affirms this binary but shows that it collapses when the young Black man realizes that he must fall into a minimized identity—what he calls “a gimmick”— to survive.
Even though the diaspora is not explicitly discussed in this passage, Baldwin alludes to it by creating distance between himself and the United States. He refers to the United States as “this republic” and “this country”. He strays from any possession or affiliation. In contrast, he speaks on race without hesitance. He writes “I was icily determined…to die and go to Hell before I would let any white man spit on me”. An understanding of these keywords lays the groundwork for the binary between Black male identity and the United States.
By using progressive diction to enforce logic, Baldwin proclaims the universality of his explanation to all Black men in the United States. For example, he writes “I did not intend to allow the white people of this country to tell me who I was, and limit me that way, and polish me off that way. And yet, of course, at the same time, I was being spat on and defined and described and limited” (Baldwin). The use of “and yet, of course” in this sentence enforces an assumption of understanding and universality. His logic progresses through this transition, leaving no room for confusion.
Further, Baldwin’s use of em dashes maneuver time and emphasize the development of this conflict throughout (his, and) Black male life. In all three instances that he pauses mid-sentence, he references the past. He writes, “I was icily determined—more determined, really, than I then knew—never to make my peace with the ghetto”. These transfers to the past show that the conflict between his identity and the United States was already budding. These repetitive reflections reinforce that the binary was always there.
In the end, these elements apply a gravity to his collapse of the binary, when he states: “Every Negro boy—in my situation during those years, at least—who reaches this point realizes, at once, profoundly, because he wants to live, that he stands in great peril and must find, with speed, a “thing”, a gimmick, to lift him out, to start him on his way.” Here, the binary collapses because, to survive, the Black male has to shape his identity in a way that the United States will accept. The conflict between Black male identity and the United States still exists, but the first must give into the other. Through these elements, Baldwin applies unavoidability and universality to this claim.