It is not Bigger whom we fear, since his appearance among us makes our victory certain. It is the others, who smile, who go to church, who give no cause for complaint, whom we sometimes consider with amusement, with pity, even with affection-and in whose faces we sometimes surprise the merest arrogant hint of hatred, the faintest, withdrawn, speculative shadow of contempt-who make us uneasy; whom we cajole, threaten, flatter, fear; who to us remain unknown, though we are not {we feel with both relief and hostility and with bottomless confusion} unknown to them. It is out of our reaction to these hewers of wood and drawers of water that our image of Bigger was created.
( James Baldwin )
[ Notes of a Native Son ]
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