Author: egregor4

Last night, my friend was talking to me about struggling to take care of herself. She is a passionate, critical, and involved human who always challenges me to be a better ally, revolutionary, and person. Her critical gaze allows her to hold her community, her friends, and herself morally accountable. This helps her make an actual difference everywhere she goes. She knows that the world can be kinder and expresses that with an urgency. I’m always so deeply impressed and touched by her passion. However, she also holds herself to high standards and struggles with acknowledging the state of her mental health. Almost automatically, I started sharing some things I’ve learned about James Baldwin.

In this class, we have truly challenged and interrogated Baldwin’s canon. By beginning with Richard Wright and discussing the throwaway treatment of the two rape scenes, we familiarized ourselves with the limits of the tradition which jumpstarts and undercuts Baldwin’s career. In Baldwin’s own fiction, we examined the female characters, like Hella, who receive underwhelming, and occasionally misogynistic, depictions. In Baldwin’s essays about France, we discussed his potential responsibility to address France’s racism and ongoing colonization in the context of the Algerian War. Several of us were disheartened by the lack of nuance and attention that the situation received. We resolved this partially by a comparison to King’s backlash at speaking up about the Vietnam War, as well as emphasizing his mental health struggles and suicide attempts. Finally, in the Civil Rights section, we acknowledged yet another limit to Baldwin’s canon. In his lively conversation with Audre Lorde, Baldwin has a frustrating commitment to his distinct perspective as a man. This was yet another challenging subject for our class, as we were once again forced to confront Baldwin’s personal limits. Even though he attempts to hear Lorde out, a disconnect and lack of witness remains in that interview. Ultimately, our class came to the tenuous (I hesitate to say) conclusion that even if Baldwin’s mind wasn’t changed in this interview, it at least must have made him think.

Despite all the ways we encountered frustrations and limits in Baldwin’s canon, I’m primarily left with his radical resistance and transformative message of love. He exposes the spark burning deep within the gilded walls of the Church & of America. He challenges himself and all his readers to enter into the Love we each enflesh in a revolutionary way. It is certainly a prophetic and explosive vision. I feel so blessed to have been able to unpack it right now and with all of you. 

Finally, I’d like to bring this back to the conversation I had with my friend. This powerful and loving person in my life was being so hard on herself for needing a little help to feel ok. So, I tried to tell her about the deep complexity of Baldwin as a person, writer, and revolutionary. Even Baldwin has limits, be they personal or political. And he recognizes them, which allows us to as well! I believe it is a deeply loving act to present those limits unaffectedly and honestly. Accepting his limits resists the totalizing projects of capitalism, authoritarianism, and fascism. Baldwin’s resistance doesn’t seek some neo-liberal consumptive version of success or perfection. He is human and he wants us to be, too. Deeply, radically, and lovingly human. 

“My Dungeon Shook” combines a personal, philosophical, and urgent tone to create a weighty and undeniably moving piece. Particularly, after reading it in light of our discussion regarding effective teaching pedagogies, I was struck by the language surrounding history. Baldwin effectively categorizes the way history functions as a tool for the oppressor, as well as its interaction with whiteness. “History,” though, in this letter is a complex term. For example, Baldwin delineates between different types of histories. Of the crimes of whiteness, Baldwin asserts “neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it.” Here, history seems to refer to a neutral, objective force of justice and inertia, that ultimately progresses toward true emancipation for Black Americans. 

Baldwin describes another kind of history, though. He explains, white people “are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.” The entrapping, false history is distinguishable from the previous definition. History, in this context, upholds injustice and opposes motion. It also comes to define whiteness, in its horrific and distorted “innocence” of manipulative and coercive ignorance. It is this type of history that Baldwin tells his nephew “does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.” The malleable history is forgettable, boring, and whitewashed. It lacks nuance but commands and ensures violence. 

Luckily, Baldwin continues to resist through his letter to his nephew. Once again, he reinterprets the word history. By narrowing in on the particulars that whiteness erases, Baldwin reanimates history. He tells his nephew “It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of 4 the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity.” With his history of dignity and honesty, Baldwin inches society closer to the capital H history which moves indefinitely and unstoppably toward justice.

In our readings for Monday, questions of canon and authorization coincided with the interrogation of integration and survival. In “Why James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time Still Matters,” Orlando Edmonds proposes that “the irony of today’s police violence would not have been lost on Baldwin: namely, that all this takes place under the watch of a Black President, whose first term began a little more than forty years later.” Certainly, Baldwin is aware of the hypocrisy of systems in the US, whether that be the morality of the Black church or heterosexuality or the institutionalization of racism. Undoubtably, the hypocrisy of a Black President would be unsurprising. Interestingly, this article distinctly notes Baldwin keen perception on issues of irony. His particular voice, then, is postured to critique and mock America’s hypocrisy with honesty and precision. 

In a similar motion,  Thomas Chatterton Williams in “Equal in Paris” investigates France’s history and canon of satire. His conclusion, is that “it is Baldwin whose words echo loudest in my mind—more than Voltaire or Rushdie or Christopher Hitchens or any other exemplar of satire and blasphemy.” In France’s moment of crisis, more than the relics of old canon, Williams appeals to the scathing words of Baldwin, outside of the hypocrisy of the Enlightenment’s colonizations. Similarly, Williams’ race provides him with the insight to see through France’s performance of satire. He acknowledges the coexistence of France’s “violent, racist, and unexorcised past” as well as their “tradition of anti-authoritarian satiric wit.” This is what leads him to ultimately conclude “a crucial component of any joke or narrative can be found in who exactly is doing the telling.” His work then, in this paper and in his reading of Baldwin, lies is valuing the insightful and productive voices of the oppressed as relevant and canon worthy, if not canon-creating. 

The conclusion for both Williams and Lorde seems to be an ethos opposed to mythologizing thinkers. Rather than promoting a culture that pedestals thinkers, like the Western canon that highlight Descartes, these two challenge us to elevate those forgotten in order to make the possibility of a true canon even thinkable. 

Audre Lorde boldly proposes radical empathy in the work of redefining identity as a liberating form of resistance. This outlook, which grows out of Baldwin’s assertion that love transcends, renews the life force fighting against the intersecting oppressions of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy. Radical empathy opposes stagnation by emphasizing unity and harmony through difference and understanding.The way forward requires active listening. For example, Lorde challenges white women in the academy to examine “the needs and living contexts of other women” (Lorde). Lorde doesn’t stop by challenging white feminists to a more honest, nuanced, and selfless allyship. She also acknowledges her own personal strivings to witness to her fellow WOC’s pains. She demonstrates how to listen by sharing “If I participate, knowingly or otherwise, in my sister’s oppression and she calls me on it, to answer her anger with my own only blankets the substance of our exchange with reaction. It wastes energy” (Lorde) For Lorde, the stakes of this call to radical empathy are high. They demand an ego death that allows for unity and real witness. It requires a transcendence of paralyzing guilt, which Lorde identifies as “only another form of objectification” (Lorde). Lorde seems to carve space into the civil rights movement for the wisdom and power of Black women with this approach. It is both bold and welcoming in its intersectional embrace. 

This carries on the legacy of Baldwin’s artistic empathy and passion. His gospel of love lays the foundation for the kind of listening that makes Lorde’s intersectionality possible. After the different moments of misogyny in this course, it was striking to hear Lorde call out toxic masculinity, stating “it’s so entrenched in him that it’s part of him as much as his Blackness is” (Baldwin and Lorde). Like in our discussion of Native Son, Lorde points out the way certain conceptions of Black masculinity rage against emasculation and impotence in a way that needlessly kills Black women. It was refreshing to hear our class’ critique validated in this way. Baldwin then shows us how to push forward, beyond guilt, in difficult conversations. The pair practice radical empathy and witness by allowing different experiences of gender to inform and harmonize their insights.

One of the most striking differences between the first book of Go Tell It on the Mountain and Native Son for me was the rich relationships and side characters Baldwin offered. In “Many Thousands Gone,” Baldwin claims that “Bigger has no discernible relationship to himself, to his own life, to his own people, nor to any other people.” Certainly, as a reader, after 400 pages of Bigger’s isolated experience of the world, I found myself, while not put off, thoroughly fatigued. That fatigue sets in early, though. From the beginning, there is a feeling that everything in Wright’s world reflects back onto his main character. The shameful undertones of Vera and her mother as they change furtively and quickly in the opening of the first scene seems to somehow be more about Bigger’s shame and isolation. The competitive egos and insecurities of Bigger’s friends feels more indicative of Bigger’s issues than of an honest, nuanced depiction of community, friendship, or Black men. For me, this related back to the question of artistry that came up during Ahana’s presentation. This impulse, to create a main character with such overwhelming and isolating gravitas, was a bold choice. It was not always very relatable or efficient, and I believe some of the poetics, artistry, or connection was lost as a result. 

Going into Go Tell It on the Mountain, I was curious to see if these same issues might come up or how they might be addressed differently. I think looking at the depiction of the mother in Baldwin’s book could be an excellent access point, especially as gender was such a gripping and obvious issue in the last text. At least for starters, I believe Baldwin explains the relationship between John and John’s mother much more effectively, artistically, and honestly. For example, as John thinks about old pictures of his mom in comparison with her current battered appearance, he finds that “between the two faces there stretched a darkness and a mystery that John feared, and that sometimes cause him to hate her” (20). This line beautifully conveys the ominous, mystical, and confusing feelings that John must wrestle with in his relationship with his mom. It is far more discernible, relatable, and redemptive almost. 

I’m interested in the question of redemption for Bigger Thomas. He performs some pretty ghastly acts throughout the texts and, equally as poignantly, experiences deep pain and exclusion. The coexistence of these two realities, Bigger as victim and perpetrator, offers a unique nuance to the question of redemption. What could redemption look like for Bigger? In my mind, it would be a combination of remorse, inclusion, and a resounding affirmation of life. This, unfortunately, never occurs. Frank Wilderson and James Baldwin perhaps offer two opposing access points to get at this question of redemption for Bigger Thomas.

The concept of “social death,” for Orlando Patterson, denotes the extreme exclusion and violence of slavery, specifically the enslavement of Black people in America. Frank Wilderson, however, in his essay “Afro-Pessimism and the End of Redemption,” proposes Afro-Pessimism “which is premised on an iconoclastic claim: that Blackness is coterminous with Slaveness. Blackness is social death.” Richard Wright’s Bigger Thomas’ saturating exclusion from sociality, language, and institutions of power in this novel seems to provide an example of the Black man who’s Blackness is Slaveness is social death. Indeed, Wright writes of Bigger: “had he not taken fully upon himself the crime of being black?” (296). And as Max later states, “His very existence is a crime against the state” (400). The state, which holds the power, sees Bigger’s life as oppositional to its own. Beyond this, even the concepts and language which are supposed to protect people are contaminated by anti-Blackness. As Max states, “injustice which lasts for three long centuries and which exists among millions of people over thousand of square miles of territory, is injustice no longer; it is an accomplished fact of life” (391). The very definition of justice left Bigger behind. This seems similar to Wilderson’s ideas that the Humanist discourse is premised on Black people’s death and oppression. Furthermore, there is something to be said about the fact that Bigger cannot even defend himself to his jury or his reader. Wright gives the longest and most potentially redeeming words to a white lawyer, who is able to deal in the systems of the oppressor. This only further emphasizes Bigger’s experience of social death. Wright ultimately calls this social death, through Max’s words, a “new form of life,” one that white America does not understand and wants to crush out of guilt (391).

How does social death in Native Son help us understand the arc of redemption? Wright tells us Bigger “had lived outside of the lives of men… their modes of communication, their symbols and images, had been denied him.” After Max’s limited witness and justification of his pain, Bigger hinges his redemption of a certain sense of closure, relation, and understanding with Max. This never comes. In the final scene, “Bigger’s voice was full of frenzied anguish” and “Max’s eyes were full of terror” (429). There is a blindness to Max, the intellectual who negotiates with the system in the language of the system, who “did not turn around” (429). This whole scene leaves Bigger, alone, misunderstood, and angry. He sees himself more fully perhaps, but it does not appear to be a redemption. An Afro-Pessimistic lens might give some insight as to why. WIlderson claims that “social death is aporetic with respect to narrative writ large (and, by extension, to redemption, writ large).” Wilderson’s idea of “redemption as an anti-Black modality” is rooted in the idea that for the Black person in America, social death constitutes a lack of spatiality, reciprocity, and futurity. Wilderson basically claims that there is a whole different temporality that cannot allow for redemption as defined by the current humanist language and discourse. So (I think) for Wilderson, the final scene of Native Son would not be a redemption, but rather an accurate depiction of the temporality of Blackness (as coterminous with Slaveness and social death).

Baldwin, though, offers some contrary thoughts. In “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” Baldwin criticizes Native Son for how “below the surface of this novel, there lies, as it seems to me, a continuation, a complement of that monstrous legend it was written to destroy.” (22) His issue with the book seems to be that it works in the systems and stories that White America uses to exclude Black Americans and enforce social death. On a wider scale, Baldwin offers two lines of reasoning in his general critique of the genre. One that the protest novel is zealous and reductive and another that the protest novel is a mirror of life, rather than accomplishing its lofty goals. He states “the failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended” (23). Interestingly, this critique resembles Jesse McCarthy’s take in “On Afropessimism,” which critiques the reductive nature of Wilderson’s lens. McCarthy contrasts Wilderson’s swooping assumptions about Blackness with more nuanced examples, before ultimately critiquing the isolating and unproductive impulse of the philosophy. Sounds familiar. Does Wilderson then inherit Wright’s legacy? Is Wilderson’s critical work a sort of continuation of the Protest Novel genre which Baldwin critiques? What is the utility of works that so boldly and provocatively hold space for the pain of Black people in America, while still upholding the current system and mythology through negation? Is there any?