Exile from one’s country can renew identity through silence

Evidence

I wondered, at the time, if this was what James Baldwin initially felt when he lived abroad: an escape from the constant demand to deal with what was happening in the States and what was happening in him because of it. Paris became a refuge of sorts in his early days. Whatever Baldwin faced there, at least he didn’t have to deal with the barrage of racist nonsense here, and in the silence that his lack of French afforded him, he could reimagine himself. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 27

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the reader’s silence theme and West’s dictum on writing abroad; grounds Baldwin’s expatriation causally.