I found Baldwin’s letter to his nephew to be the most powerful of the pieces we read. I got pretty emotional reading it. It seemed, to me, to express most of the same things his letter to teachers did, but they felt more poignant in the context of writing to his nephew, a young black man. I do think he spells out certain points, like how white people can be “innocent” and “ignorant,” more explicitly and thoroughly in the letter to educators. It definitely helped my reading of the letter to his nephew to read the letter to teachers before. In both letters, he describes the way white people easily forget that black people exist as equally complex human beings. The letter to his nephew exemplified the existence (which feels like a terrible word to use here) of black people. Baldwin talked about the universally human experience of loving someone, and raising them, and seeing their relatives  in them and watching them grow. And throughout the letter, we could feel the love he has for his nephew. This felt like an important emotional reminder that the lives of those written out of history are equally as emotionally deep. Baldwin, unlike past writers who have attempted to open up the stories of those silenced by history, was able to explicitly discuss his experience because it was his own — he did not need to fear misrepresenting himself. Given this, in the letter to his nephew, he did not have to waste time or emotional effort making accomodations for white readers. I, as a white reader, found this really powerful. He noted how “innocents” would think he was exaggerating, but continued knowing that his nephew, having actually experienced the life of a black man, would not need convincing of its conditions. This being said, I found Baldwin’s tone throughout both letters more poignant. At times, it felt like Ruskin’s tone was too formal, making it feel less sincere than Baldwin’s more conversational tone was. I think this conversational sincerity permeated both of Baldwin’s letters, which made them feel more emotionally gripping and powerful to me.