Going To Meet The Man

For Jesse, black people have no humanity; rather, their bodies serve as fodder for his racist, white supremacist fantasies, which confirm his precarious position of power. As an example, when using the cattle prod on Mrs. Blossom's grandson, Jesse says the grandson is not a man but "a goddamn bull" (233). After the beating, Jesse taunts the young man about "pump[ing] some white blood" (235) into black women and feels "himself violently stiffen" (235) with an erection. Jesse derives his entire sense of white masculinity from the sexual exploitation and torture of black people. In bed with his white wife, Grace, Jesse cannot perform sexually. Only when Jesse arouses himself with memories of the emasculation of a black man, or by role-playing as a black man, can Jesse have sex with his wife. Even as a young boy, Jesse wishes he "had been that man" (247) with the "long, bright knife" (247) who castrates the black man. This moment makes Jesse feel as though his father has "revealed to him a great secret which would be the key to his life forever" (248).

Sexual repression of black Americans has long served as a form of control by white America. By portraying black men as sexual predators, particularly of white women, white men secure their place as patriarchal protectors of white femininity. Jesse reveals his paranoia about the breakdown of this system by protectively grabbing his own "privates" (233) when Mrs. Blossom's gravely-injured grandson calls him "white man" (233). Portraying black women as sexual objects for the taking, as Jesse does, relegates black women's sole purpose to white male pleasure and reproduction. In both cases, white men solidify their sense of control over dehumanized black Americans. Baldwin shows extreme instances of both black male and female sexual repression in this short story, as well as the complexity of how this mentality develops in a particular white man.