April 2021 – Page 3 – James Baldwin

Intersectionality and Lorde

Audre Lorde, in the article “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism” (1981), discusses interior tensions amongst women, especially the tendency of white women to ignore or actively harm women of color. But it is not just about gender. Lorde identifies her experience in specific terms: she is a woman, Black, and Lesbian. I think that this urge, to specify your own experience, is critical in the project Lorde lays out (which is ultimately to use anger fruitfully to dismantle racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other marginalizing tactic). For this project to work, women need to be able to communicate with one another, to be willing to listen to the experiences of other women. In other words, the idea of intersectionality seems to be a prominent, underlying topic of this article.

I will now explore how intersectionality connects up with Audre Lorde and her project by discussing what intersectionality really means. The term was first coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and it refers to the various social identities that combine in the individual to create a particular kind of oppression. Black womanhood, for example is an example of an intersectional identity. It is not just the additive result of combining “blackness” and “womanhood” together, but rather a different entity altogether. In a paper by Sara Bernstein called “The Metaphysics of Intersectionality” she proposes a unique, metaphysical way to view intersectionality. According to her argument, intersectional identities are actually more critical building blocks of identity than more general categories. In other words, “…intersectional categories are explanatorily prior to their constituents. Rather than the conjuncts explaining the conjunction, the conjunction explains the conjuncts” (331). This means that “Black womanhood” is prior to “blackness” and “womanhood.” Ideas about blackness are derived from the specific instantiations of blackness found in individuals, not the other way around. This idea is powerful because it suggests that to know about “women” you must know about black women, queer women, Native American women, disabled women and more.

Audre Lorde deeply criticizes white women for refusing to listen to women of color, whether that be walking out of conferences or cutting them off from telling their stories. Another way to describe this criticism is that women who refuse to listen to other women (who are different from them) are not actually interested in learning about what it means to be a woman and ending the oppression of women. Lorde summarizes this well when she writes, “What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman’s face?” (“The Uses of Anger…”). To care only about the oppression directly at hand in your own life is to be ignorant of the ways in which you yourself participate in the oppression of other women. Lorde, and the theory of intersectionality that I laid out above, both suggest that perspectives of the most marginalized in society are often the most critical to the betterment of society. The tapestry of difference amongst people must be expressed, not feared, in order for the larger project of equality to occur.

Biomythography – Lorde & Baldwin

I would like to explore the use of biomythography prior to our discussion of the intersection of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. The concept of biomythography is intentionally borrowed from Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. It is a combination of myth, history, and biography in narrative format, often transcending conventions of said genres. I believe Baldwin, although much of his work predates Lorde’s, borrowed the conception of writing as self-discovery and claim. I argued this in my Richard Wright essay, in which I wrote that “Baldwin’s writing, thus, is effectively an act of personal salvation in the face of racism, homophobia, and condemnation,” in which he “sees identity as spectral and subjective, non-conforming to sanctions enforced by society.” Baldwin uses his criticism of Wright as staking a claim in his own conceptions of masculinity and identity and he does this out of personal need. He says the violence is gratuitous not because it is against women, but instead because it is an inaccurate portrayal of masculinity and is characteristic of the rage of castration. This is perhaps an issue misplaced or forgotten, yet telling of Baldwin’s primary thought in dealing with the racial divide.

I believe Lorde does the same but perhaps takes it a step further.

I read Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name last semester for a women’s writing course, and in much of our discussion, we explored how Lorde rewrites herself through the use of language and reflection. Most notably, how Lorde mythologizes the persona of “Audre” to adopt “Zami” which is incidentally, “a Carriacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers”. The protagonist is robbed of the conception of identity (perhaps what Lorde felt), and thus must reclaim her sense of self. Considering Lorde was legally blind, her life is a multi-traversing sensory experience. Lorde uses a third-dimensional, sensual language as symbolic meaning. This language is not phallocentric, it is a place where women and power might coexist, and demands an engaged and active audience. Just as Lorde challenged her readers, she seems to have challenged Baldwin.

Baldwin has a clear and objective focus on the black man’s struggle in America. He says: “But you don’t realize that in this republic the only real crime is to be a Black man?” To which Lorde responds: “No, I don’t realize that. I realize that the only crime is to be Black. I realize the only crime is to be Black, and that includes me too”. Lorde points out one of Baldwin’s neglected margins of oppression of which he did not identify: the black woman. Lorde brings this topic to the forefront for Baldwin, directly addressing how black men use violence against black women as a way to cope with society’s treatment. Baldwin seems to push back, noting how a black man must not be blamed “for the trap he is in,” to which Lorde again re-emphasizes her point, not of blame, but of necessary change. These are thoughts I hope to continue to explore in my final paper, so feel free to leave feedback!

A Cautionary Tale?

No question the narrative of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room is a tragedy; David falls victim to the cruel hands of time, heartbreak, and isolation as a result of his preservation of his pride and his performance in the Male Prison/Panopticon. On his troubling journey toward self-realization, David has a major hand in the psychological and emotional damaging of both Giovanni and Hella. I found the conclusion of Giovanni’s Room to be incredibly powerful, and I felt that the work could be read as a cautionary tale of sorts.

I would hope that the text is not misconstrued as a denunciation of Americans’ willing exploration of their true identities, or their breaking from their social performance under the surveillance of the panopticon. I don’t think that Baldwin is suggesting that American’s should live in blissful ignorance lest they die by their own curiosities (a sentiment that Hella would fully endorse, given her “Americans should never come to Europe” monologue). I do, however, think that Baldwin is warning us a slower, but much more final death. Giovanni’s Room, to me, serves as a cautionary tale against one’s reversion into social comfort, ignorance, and complacency at the expense of one’s truth.

The slow destruction of each of David’s close relationships speaks to this slow death about which Baldwin warns us. When David decides to throw himself into her to escape his feelings toward Giovanni (though I do believe that David did also really love Hella), he leaves a vital part of himself to die. David reverts into the comfort of his performance in the panopticon, smothering the side of himself that he found in his life with Giovanni so that he might buy more time for the side of him that stays with Hella. But both sides die, all the same in the end. David is left all alone, the love of his life dead and the woman he loved broken and gone. Baldwin warns us of the silent danger social performance in the panopticon…seems no matter what, we die in jail.

David’s “Flight”

David alludes to the idea of his “flight” multiple times before leaving for Paris in the novel. First, when speaking of his life after being with Joey: “I began, perhaps, to be lonely that summer and began, that summer, the flight which has brought me to this darkening window” (EN 227). Second, when he thwarts his father’s attempt to grow closer to him: “Perhaps he had supposed that my growing up would bring us closer together–whereas, now that he was trying to find out something about me, I was in full flight from him. I did not want him to know me” (EN 232). Finally, when describing his plans to leave America: “Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself…I think now that if I had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home” (EN 236). It seems that this attempt at flight from his true self and the disclosure of his queerness was unsuccessful.

He seems to be torn between the ideas that he ran to Paris to live into queerness or rather ran away from America in order to cure himself of his queerness. I think that whichever reality of his flight is true, he failed at both. Despite his best efforts to be ‘the man’ he wants to be, he cannot quench his sexual desire for men. He repeatedly fails himself when he decides he is going to quit Giovanni and ‘make a wife’ of Hella. At the same time, he never truly experiences what it might be like to embrace his queerness. For this, I feel he can never reciprocate the love Giovanni had for him. He wants to, but his fear disables him from any true flight in one direction. He instead stays stagnant, paralyzed, living trapped between two worlds. This is what causes his ultimate ‘death’ in a sense. For this, I feel the most empathy for David.

I would argue that it is his Foucaultian power that disables him in such a way. David seems to be read as a character with accessibility to immense power that neglects to utilize it. Foucault might disagree, and instead state that David is using his power. If power is seen as diffused, one can even exert power over themselves. David’s fear of retribution for his queerness drives his incapacity to love or fully embrace himself, keeping him ‘stuck.’ It is then not in spite of David’s power that he receives the fate he does but rather because of it.

Unity in Christianity

While reading “Going to Meet the Man”, I noticed many similarities with “Down at the Cross”. For one, there is a consistent questioning of how Christianity differs between blacks and whites. Is God the same towards blacks as he is towards whites? Is there a separate heaven for separate races? In “Going to Meet the Man”, Baldwin writes about a white man named Jessie. “…he [Jessie] had never thought of their [African Americans] heaven or what God was, or could be, for them…” (Baldwin 938). Jessie deduces that there must be a separate heaven and maybe even a separate God for black people than whites. It’s not surprising that it’s not something he has thought about. Why would someone want to think that those they dehumanize on earth could actually prove to have the same worth in heaven? We see the same conclusions from a black perspective. In “Down at the Cross,” Baldwin writes, “But God…is white” (304). Baldwin has difficulty believing that the same God white Christians worshiped, could ever love him as well. We see this saddening ideology of racial separation in a belief that clearly stands for unity. This is due to the way the world we live in affects our spiritual beliefs. I find that often we judge God’s character based on the character of people or society. During Baldwin’s time especially, society said that we were meant to be separate and some automatically assumed that heaven must work the same. In our world, whites are automatically categorized as righteous and pure while blacks are subconsciously seen as sinful and suspicious. This leaves people assuming that God sees people the way society does- whites as godly and blacks as ungodly. To this day, we still have white churches and black churches. Why can’t people worship the same God together? It’s obvious that this racial separation continues to prevalent in our world today. However, doesn’t Jesus call for unity? Why isn’t the church representing God’s kingdom the way it’s supposed to? I believe these are questions Baldwin wrestles with.

Galatians 3: 28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (ESV). It’s clear that God does not see anyone as superior or inferior. He sees us as not just equal but one and the same. Separation and inequality are things the world teaches us, but not something God teaches. We must be careful with looking at the world for God when the world does not support what He says. Baldwin falls into the lie that God and the world run the same way when in reality they do not. Unity is what God calls for, yet all we see in the world and the church is disunion. The church is meant to represent Christ, and this is one thing that is certainly missing. God does not change his word for the world. We must change our world for his word. Moral of the story is to depend on God more than what we see in the world and shoot for change.

Power of Love

Though seemingly completely different characters, Baldwin connects Jesse from Going to Meet The Man with David from Giovani’s Room with precision. Both protagonists fall exceedingly short of Baldwin’s goals in the same way – the inability to love.

The Latin-derived name Grace means “Gift from God”. This element is important as it connects to Baldwin’s biblical intent. It also exacerbates Jesse’s inability to love. Jesse, consumed by his hatred of Black people, cannot love his wife emotionally or physically. In fact, his hatred for African Americans does not allow him to actually love himself or his own people. He is jailed by his hatred of Black people and it manifests in sick ways. Not only does the abuse and mutilation of Black people bring him joy, it defines who he is. His hatred was taught to him by his father and the society at large. Family gatherings and community events center around the lynchings of Black men. The hate is so ingrained in him that he cannot actually love. His hate consumes even his most intimate acts. He can only have relations with his wife when he taps into hate thoughts—memories of lynchings and the abuse of Black people. Jesse’s fixation on Black male genitalia can be interpreted in multiple ways. It could be argued that it signals his hidden homo erotic nature. It could be viewed as pure fascination with an opposite. It could be viewed as study of the power dynamic that Jesse seeks to make up for his short comings. His desire for power can be found in his jealousy of his “enemy’s” maleness. It speaks directly to his insecurities.

In Giovanni’s Room, David—like Jesse— has a relationship with a woman where he attempts to tap into the perceived “heterosexual” power. There is a status that derives from David’s ability to revert to his normative relationship whenever he pleases. This allows him the ability to have loveless encounters with Joey and eventually Giovanni. He holds the power in all relationships with gay men because he can simply fade and downgrade the relationship, thus never having to offer his love, affection, vulnerability. However, Baldwin argues that both characters are fatally trapped – Jesse’s all-consuming hatred and David’s lack of emotional commitment—both disabling them from love. Jesse can never truly develop a relationship with God because he lacks the most important key to establishing that relationship. Hate consumes him so much that there is no room for love. David tries to be perceived as being more powerful in his homosexual relationships because he can always run to the other side. In truth, Baldwin demonstrates he’s not. Giovanni holds the power as he expresses his love to David without fear of the outside world. Giovanni is able to remember the time when he was in the Garden of Eden when he had a normative relationship and was happy, and he is able to forget that Garden of Eden as he dives fully into a homosexual relationship where he looks to love as well. He is a true hero, according to Baldwin. Love is priority number one for Baldwin, so one’s ability to be “manly” should be demonstrated in one’s ability to love, not who they love.

Working through “Going to Meet the Man”

I can’t get “Going to Meet the Man” out of my head. I think it’s because this short story has been the most brutal one that I’ve read for any class. What I got from the short story is that Baldwin, through some very disturbing scenes, was trying to explain (maybe just theorizing or examining) how Jesse’s (and the other white men’s) sexual insecurity can be seen as a metaphor for understanding racial oppression. Jesse, as a white police officer, was experiencing the turmoil of the Jim Crow era. Black men were seen as a threat to the dominance that white people exercised, so the threats were neutralized through lynchings, beatings, and torture. Not saying that we have this level of brutality today. Still, the pain and shock that I experienced reading this mirror the ones I’ve felt times and times again when I see a video of or read an article of a black body being brutalized today.

One recurring mechanism behind Jesse’s racism is the objectification of the Black body. And it’s a trope/idea that we’ve seen in many other readings in this class. The immediate one that comes to mind is Native Son. In this short story, it seems like, through the White gaze, black bodies are othered and transformed into animals to justify white supremacy and racism. My understanding of Wright’s argument in Native Son points to a similar phenomenon. Wright’s novel attempted to make the case that rather than black people having an innately depraved mentality, it is white objectification and racism that led to the creation of Bigger Thomas, a character that illustrated the formation of black identity through violence.

Yet, at one point, I did feel sorry for Jesse when he was recounting the stories from his childhood. It was interesting to see how this young child could have been raised to become a terrorist.

Tragedy

As I mentioned in class, I remembered reading a book titled Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran in my Gay and Lesbian America class freshman year. *Spoilers*: The whole novel talks about the way gay men search for love and eventually fail to do so and end up in mainly sexual relationships, addicted to hard drugs (such as poppers and heroin), and stuck hanging around gay clubs.

In Gay and Lesbian America, we also watched movie (the name of which I cannot remember) where the premise was a closeted Catholic gay man struggles with his identity as he has dinner with his friends (who I cannot remember if they were out and gay or not). In both these stories, the men end up unhappy. There is no hope for them. There is no love for them. This reminds me very much of Giovanni’s Room.

Jacques lives a loveless life where he finds no comfort in the arms of young boys that he pays to keep him company and sleep with him. Similar to Jacques, Guillaume pays young boys to keep him company and attempts to add Giovanni to the mix (unsuccessfully) and dies. Giovanni is left behind by David, sexually harassed by Guillaume, and eventually sentenced to death without David even making an attempt to visit him. David, the penultimate character, finds that he can never love another person again and ends up alone.

What is so interesting about all of these stories is the holding on to the staunch idea that gay men cannot find love. That whether they are actively looking for love (like Dancer from the Dance) or are not looking for love (the movie I watched) and stumble upon it (Giovanni’s Room), it is impossible to keep the love that they gain, it is impossible for them to love another man fully or for another man to love them fully, and love does not exist for gay men.

I wonder if these works of art are just works of art of the times. Giovanni’s Room was published in 1956. Dancer from the Dance was published in 1978. The movie I watched was in black and white, suggesting it came out around the same time as Giovanni’s Room. I know that those times were very much different from today, but, I’m left wondering why that even in fiction people could not imagine gay men being happy.

Norms leave no room for love

For my presentation and paper, I have decided to focus on the power gender norms, and roles have on influencing societal interpretations of sexuality and how these interpretations affected James Baldwin. Throughout Baldwin’s writing and his interpretations of other texts, such as the Bible, we have seen that he prioritized love and self-acceptance as the ultimate goal in life. Baldwin’s Biblical interpretations are inclusive, and he embraces Christs’ message of love as the greatest act of faith and fulfillment. Despite this, we have seen the toll gender roles and sexuality norms took on the characters of Giovanni’s Room and how they impacted Baldwin’s understanding of his sexuality. In attempting to understand Baldwin’s perception of gender norms and roles, I reread “The Male Prison,” which beautifully articulates the disastrous nature of hypermasculinity and heteronormativity. Baldwin rejects notions of naturalism associated with sexuality and instead argues that human impulses are far beyond the constraints set by normative behavior. He argues that norms are reinforced to protect people’s conceptions of what is natural and normal, “And one of the reasons for this is that it would rob the normal -who are simply the many – of their very necessary sense of security and order” ( The Male Prison, Collected Essays). Baldwin understands that norms are not inherent and can be abandoned but are not because the majority prefers to protect their sense of order.

Similarly, gender theorist Michel Foucault articulates rejections of norms as inherent and argues that this conception of gender and sexuality as science or fact is a strategy for state observation. Like Baldwin, Foucault acknowledges that human impulses exceed the norms and acknowledges that sexuality is about desire and pleasure and cannot be structured scientifically or generalized. Foucault takes Baldwin’s argument about norms only being in place to establish and protect order a step further by declaring that science was only ever associated with sexuality as a justification to promote heterosexuality which furthered state population reproduction goals. In essence, the state encourages society to perpetuate these gender norms to observe the population better and exert order and force. Baldwin is such a talented writer because of his ability to explain deep theoretical issues in a manner that illuminates the human perspective; he likens these restrictive forces to “The Male Prison” and arguably to “Giovanni’s Room.” In Giovanni’s Room, David and Giovanni are trapped, unable to go out and express their desire or true love for one another. Baldwin wants to show that the perpetuation of gender norms and roles is so pervasive that people struggle to accept themselves and ultimately have miserable fates as a result. It is evident that gender norms are constructed and intentionally restrictive. I believe that Baldwin rejected these norms so heavily not only because they limited his own sexual identity but because his faith calls for a message of love, acceptance, and understanding. Gender norms and roles do not prioritize the love and connection Baldwin repeatedly submits that all humans need.

Corrupted Christianity

Jesse’s cruelty is absolutely horrifying and disgusting. Similarly, his absolute delusion and evil persuasion of his own blessedness or security is terrifying. In the very first paragraph, after Grace tells him he has been working too hard, he aggressively spits back ” ‘it’s not my fault.’ ” In this first refusal to take responsibility for the choices that are effecting his soul and community, Jesse hints at his absolute disconnect from reality. A master manipulator, Jesse argues to himself that “he had tried to do his duty all his life.” This doesn’t include thinking critically about the abusive misconception of duty he is working under. Indeed, the narrator claims Jesse “had never thought much about what it meant to be a good person.” There is a deeply disturbing assumption of rightness in Jesse’s character. This allows him to justify all sorts of evil behaviors.

He blames the kids he manipulates for their innocence, laughing at how “they all liked him, the kids used to smile when he came to the door.” His delusion of complete superiority enables his absolute domination and manipulation. He again harks back to his lack of responsibility, claiming his violence “wasn’t his fault” if his Black neighbors had “taken it into their heads to fight against God and go against the rules laid down in the Bible for everyone to read.” Again, Jesse makes an uninformed, uncritical, and vicious appeal to a greater morality in order to explain away his responsibility. Even in his memories, Jesse tells himself a story of an unchangeable or natural corruption and superiority. He claims his childhood self had “wished that he had been that man,” inflicting violence on the lynched man.

In all these examples, there is a sense that the greater religious and societal systems are just as corrupted. After the lynching, Jesse feels his father “carried him through a mighty test, had revealed to him a great secret.” In this language, almost like that between God and Abraham, Baldwin hints at the way white Christianity has been so thoroughly perverted, to a satanic point almost.

This eerie horror does slip into Jesse consciousness, even if he ultimately overcomes it through the his vicious domination. There is a deep anxiety in Jesse’s character that his Black neighbors are “singing white folks into hell.” When met with a resistant young Black boy, Jesse feels trapped, “perhaps one of the nightmares he himself had dreamed as a child.” He responds to this feeling with cruelty, but the horror of the moment is not lost on him. Similarly, the terror of young Jesse at the lynching, especially regarding his father’s dark joke (“if he don’t come back to haunt you”), precedes his ultimate delusive and perverted moral security or comfort at the end.

In his haunted evil, Jesse portrays the way America’s white patriarchy has passed down and institutionalized a delusion of superiority, premised on violent Black death.

(sorry no page numbers, using a PDF!!!)