And I can understand Baldwin's great perplexity...he wants to point the finger at the American way of life. How years and years of being considered not human has affected the mindset of the average person of color. And of having to come through identity crises, legal crises, social crises to be confronted with who...? A person who is this insane enough to be killing innocent kids? Why have we struggled so much, Baldwin seems to be asking, to create this monster?
And so, it is another probing we received from the always philosophical, questioning, always provocative Baldwin.
Why read the book now? Well, although this murderer has been found and given punishment based on the fullest extent of the law, the questions remains.
How have we come to this?