Effects of Ethnicity in The Society

The novel explicitly states that there was a clear connection to bitterness, cruelty and anger of Baldwin’s father and all the black Americans. The paper focuses on the effects of ethnicity in the society based in the novel Native Son. James Baldwin demonstrates his complex relationship with his father with the effect of racial discrimination on t he lives of both the father and the son. Though the father lastly accepts that the world hates him, the son never gives up and tries to find a way to fight back. The effects are arranged in paragraphs. Discrimination. Discrimination is treating a person or a particular group of people differently in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated (Cambridge Dictionary).

The white people had determined the role for the black person and they had made the decisions that kept Baldwin an outsider, Baldwin became powerless and cannot change the rules. The only way he could react was to break the rules in an act of defiance. Discrimination is clearly brought out as they had no white friends and the only ones that came were the welfare workers and the bill collectors (Baldwin 590). Unlike Baldwin, he did not have the experience of thinking he was accepted only to realize later that he was rejected. This explained why Baldwin’s father accepted his place in the society more and did not fight as Baldwin’s did. Baldwin’s later realized that his father was trying to fight the ruthless conduct of the white man towards the blacks and therefore this could explain Baldwin’s father emotions.