James Baldwin's Letter From A Region Of My Mind

“Beauty,” a flower is beautiful, the sunset looking over a beach is beautiful, the Black body is beautiful? James Baldwin’s piece “Letter from a Region of My Mind,” speaks of the Black body and how it is beautiful, but his reasoning why is thought provoking. He says, “...black has become a beautiful color—not because it is loved but because it is feared” (Baldwin). One does not think of terror when they think of beauty. No, beauty is pleasing, kind, something we walk toward and not away from. Nevertheless, Baldwin has flipped this idea on its head. The Black identity is so essential to America. They, the Black people made this country, died for it, and still continue to be treated as less than, “the most despised creature in his [white man]