On the Name Change

So if this is not your first time visiting this site, you might have noticed the change in the name of my blog from "Movies and Whatever Else It Occurs to Me to Write" to "Notes from a Native Son." I changed the name to more accurately reflect the direction that my blog has gone in since its inception. When I started, I fully intended that movie commentary would constitute the lion’s share of my writings, but as time has gone on, I have found myself not surprisingly drawn to a wider range of topics with political ones coming to occupy as much attention as cinematic ones.

So how did I choose this name in particular? Well, some will undoubtedly note the obvious allusion to Richard Wright's "Native Son" and James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son." First, Wright's novel is one of the most important 20th century America pieces of fiction, pointedly looking at the implications on the community - both black and white - of racism and white supremacy. Baldwin picked up on these themes and discussed in his work how racism, or, to be more accurate, how race had colored his experiences and then gave a keen lens through which to view America from behind the veil.

For my part, I can never, and would never want to, escape the fact that I have grown up in America as a black man. This has profoundly affected the way in which I see things, the way in which I understand things, and how I view history’s interplay with the present and culture's coll0quy with life. For these reasons (and because Baldwin is one of my favorite writers) I have changed the title of my blog to more accurately reflect what it is I think that binds my writings together. They are notes, of sorts, compiled by a man born in and of America who has experienced the world as a member of a community that has historically been the most foreign and at the same time the most American of peoples in this nation. My family's (both blood and existential) experiences - past, present and future - the society in which I grew up, and my own personal journeys skew my views that taken together constitute notes from this native son.