In order to explain how white Americans find themselves in a position of not fully knowing themselves, Baldwin points yet again to their inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the reality of the country’s current situation as it pertains to race. The idea that white Americans put a “labyrinth of attitudes” between reality and themselves wonderfully illustrates the complex nature of their ignorance; Baldwin does not say that there is a labyrinth of attitudes between white people and reality, but rather that they themselves “interpose” it between themselves and the world. As such, he depicts white people as willfully ignorant, and…