Exploitation, Power and Truth in "Down the Cross"
Exploitation, Power and Truth in "Down the Cross"
Exploitation. Power. Truth. These three concepts play a vital role in what we know as life. This was made clear within “Down at the Cross” by James Baldwin. By reading “ The Social Powers of Expert Healers” by Howard Brody and comparing the two essays one can better understand some of the views within their text. By analyzing Baldwin’s essay by using some of the views outlined in Brody’s, essay you can see how exploitation, power and truth play a vital role in his experience. Also you can be helped to see just how his perspective was able to change.
Baldwin truly feels that white people gained from the exploitation of black people. Baldwin goes on to state:
“ White people, who had robbed black people of their liberty and who profited by this theft every hour that they lived, and had no moral ground on which to stand. They had the judges, the juries, the shotguns the law-in a word power. But it was a criminal power, to be feared but not respected, and to be outwitted in any ways whatever, and those virtues preached but not practiced by the white world were merely another means of holding Negroes in subjection”(30).
White people clearly, in Baldwin’s eyes, were able to gain power through the exploitation of blacks. However it did not merely stop there. The white man could do more than exploit the black man. He could persecute, disrespect, degrade and even kill him. How? Along with abusing their power, the whites could do whatever they wanted with impunity. Black people were blind to this wicked use of power and only feared the consequences. Respect was not deserved, nor was it merited by the black people. The idea of the goodness of white people was rarely seen. It was just a method in which they could make the black man continue to look inferior. However, the key point is that the blacks would by any means necessary seek to outsmart or out wit these oppressors even if it were by playing them at their own game. Brody, like Baldwin brings up the argument that certain members of society have too much power over others. Brody states, “ social power is the primary element of physician...