Video Analysis Essay on 'The Price of the Ticket' by James Baldwin's

Introduction

James Baldwin's "The Price of the Ticket" describes his early days as a reviewer and essay writer and condenses his feelings of racism that is rampant in the current American institutions. Baldwin was born in Harlem in 1924 and faced a lot of challenges of a young black child whose father had a difficult time providing for them (California Newsreel, 2009). Baldwin explains that his father was very rigid and wanted them blacks to do only everything that the whites did like owning houses. However, Baldwin would not agree with his father and had his own beliefs and capabilities as a black. He read all the books in the Harlem library and was always trying to make a connection of the things that he read from books and those that happened outside and affected his life (California Newsreel, 2009). He saw a real connection between the written words and the actual outside life and therefore he learned that he had to use his mind and that was the way that he was going to make a revenge.

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Baldwin's life as a gay writer and an explorer of racial and social issues in America depicted championship of struggles and around identity and belonging. Firstly, it would be important to note that Baldwin was a revolutionary voice as a gay writer and as a black man. Moreover, he was a firm believer and supporter of civil rights and liberties. Baldwin faced the tension of being a novelist, a black and at the same time a novelist. Baldwin had a mind that was formed by the black evangelical passion in the Harlem streets in the 1930s.

The documentary relates to the diverse and oppressed individual in a way that they can connect with the life of Baldwin as gay, activities and a black writer of the difficult times when racism and oppression were at its peak. Additionally, in the documentary Baldwin explains that his father waned the 'Negros' to live the same way as whites (California Newsreel, 2009). However, this was just a way of making blacks carry the psychological burden of inferiority and degradation on behalf of the whites. People who oppress others in terms of race and sexual orientation often want to justify their supremacy just the same way the whites in the time of Baldwin were doing.

The documentary also posse James Baldwin as an evangelist of decolonization because his life defines that there can never be equality and unison reasoning until people come to terms with their own sexual feelings of despotism and inferiority. To achieve a liberal mind, the oppressed have to rethink of their parameters of themselves and accept their orientation first. Baldwin knew that he would not be white and would not do what they do because his father demanded that but instead released himself as a free thinker who would use his mind to think.

The documentary of James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket, brings to attention Baldwin's recognition of injustice through his artistic work as an essayist. Baldwin was black and gay and took to himself to convince people of his power and strength as an individual who did not have to act the way that the white people expected him. Baldwin discovered greater freedom to write in essays openly about the facets of identity and rights. In the documentary, Baldwin can be viewed as an individual who was keen to understand the ways that the American customs of racism and imperialism invaded into the larger world of the blacks and the brown people. Thus it would be correct to point out from the documentary 'The Price of Ticket' that Baldwin's works acknowledged the conditions of life of the oppressed and diverse in America.

References

California Newsreel. (2009, October 27). James Baldwin: the Price of the Ticket [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_hYraYI2J8&pbjreload=10