Baldwin's Identity In Stranger In The Village

At the very beginning of Stranger in the Village, it stands out to me that in a Swiss village, people there had never seen a black man until they saw Baldwin. And then, as I kept reading, I kind of understand why people in the village act like that; it’s because they were isolated. People were fascinated by the color of Baldwin’s skin that they ignored him as a real person, and the children shouted “neger” to him. I feel sad to see that people paid more attention to a person’s skin tone and appearance, and thus race, than a person’s personality, character, and morals. The children may be innocent to simple him “negro”, but the ideas of race will take root in their mind as they grow up. I could, thus, better understand what Baldwin said, “people are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” The last sentence, ”This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again”, also stands out to me because to me it’s probably prophetical at that time when he wrote this article.
He described the discrepancy between whites and African-Americans who were forcibly brought to the U.S. for slavery. It seems to me that Baldwin felt strongly about his identity and valued his culture, and his feeling of insecurity of being an American black man enraged him. The children’s shouting of “Neger” is similar to how racial separation was common in the history. In the U.S. the black were treated differently, and the belief that the blacks didn’t have rights has spread worldwide to the small villages in Swiss. Furthermore, Baldwin said that the black tried to stop the white from acknowledging him as “exotic rarity and recognize him as a human being.” However, Baldwin didn't truly blame the white for all because the white were just following