Question

Read this excerpt from James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son":

In order really to hate white people, one has to blot so much out of the mind — and the heart — that this hatred itself becomes an exhausting and self-destructive pose. But this does not mean, on the other hand, that love comes easily: the white world is too powerful, too complacent, too ready with gratuitous humiliation, and, above all, too ignorant and too innocent for that.
Which sentence best explains how the use of parallelism in the excerpt supports Baldwin's purpose?
A. It enumerates the many ways of dealing with the white world.
B. It emphasizes the problems that prevent one from loving the white world.
C. It explains why the white world is unable to replace hate with love.
D. It proves Baldwin's central idea by highlighting the obvious.

Answer 1

B. It emphasizes the problems that prevent one from loving the white world.

Parallelism is the repetition of the same grammatical or sentence structure. In the excerpt the parallel phrases are: "too powerful, too complacent, too ready...too ignorant and too innocent". These phrases make up the list of the reasons that loving white people is difficult. By using parallelism, the author is emphasizing the list and showing that there are many factors.

Answer 2

Answer: it emphasizes the problems that prevent one from loving the white world.