There are many ideas and subjects that one could discuss on this section of James Baldwin because many of them are still relevant today. Per last class, the idea of mental health and insanity had risen as a topic. Like Baldwin had stated in his conversation with Audre Lord, to be Black is to be schizophrenic. Looking up the definition of schizophrenia and what it actually is, I began to wonder why so many Black men have been diagnosed with this illness. Although there is no cause for schizophrenia, according to the American Psychiatric Association, living a life as traumatic as a Black person’s it makes sense that many Black men and women would have breakdowns between thoughts, emotions, and behavior. However, as we were discussing in class, the ideas of delusion and hallucination made me wonder about the white people who believe that our country is the greatest place on Earth, or in the words of a delusional “leader,” a place that was once great. I agree with Professor Kinyon in stating that the white (moderate) liberal is the biggest problem to our country because of their passivity. There is no recognition for the problem of the oppressor and yet, there is confusion when Black people are disproportionately affected by mental illness, police brutality, poverty, etc. The privilege that they hold is unearned, yet at the costly expense of other people’s sanity. Baldwin writes about white children being “educated” and growing up to run this country saying “but at least they are white. They are under the illusion, which, since they are so badly educated, sometimes has a fatal tenacity-that they can do whatever they want to do. Perhaps that is exactly what they are doing…” (Nobody Knows My Name, 201). Again, it begs the question, as it has so many times before, what is the role of Black Americans in society?
Products Of Our Environment
To judge David Baldwin through a 21st-century progressive lens might seem easy and evoke a universally negative response. Living with him was extreme, difficult, and abusive. He consistently beat his children, had many of them, and clouded his sins with forced religion. However, the short stories, “A Fly in Buttermilk” and “A Letter From the South” give important and needed context to David’s world. They give the reader an opportunity to see further into the circumstances that created David’s decisions. He was born and raised in the South during very difficult times. These short stories help the reader attain a better understanding and even empathize. While hard to endorse what David did, his history and circumstances need to be examined to understand his actions. Reading them certainly allowed me to pause in my harsh judgment and try to put myself in his shoes, in his environment.
In the beginning of “A Fly in Buttermilk”, James Baldwin reflects on a discussion he had with an older Southern man: “”You’ve got to remember,’ said an older Negro friend to me, in Washington, ‘that no matter what you see or how it makes you feel, it can’t be compared to twenty-five, thirty years ago – you remember those photographs of Negroes hanging from trees?’ I look at him differently. I had seen the photographs – but he might have been one of them.”(187) While a true student—extremely wise to the ideas, thoughts, and emotions of Black people in history—James Baldwin was still missing the greatest and most authentic tool to capture the true essence of his people: Experience. While James Baldwin saw pictures in journals or articles and read books about the experiences of Black people in the South, James Baldwin never lived that reality firsthand. There is a difference between seeing the two-dimensional black and white photo of an incident versus seeing it in color, hearing the screams and sounds of torture, smelling the flesh and burning, and witnessing the depravity and fear. Being immersed in the event in real-time was different than the stories. David likely had similar real-life experiences as the older man. And we can likely surmise that these experiences had great influence over how he would live his life, raise and “protect” his family. In “A Letter From the South” Baldwin writes, “I could not suppress the thought that this earth had acquired its color from the blood that had dripped down from these trees…I was to remember that Southern Negroes had endured things I could not imagine.” (198) Baldwin acknowledges the constant and unjustified killing of Black people in the South with no recourse – almost as if it was an accepted way of life. Growing up in that environment had to have a massive effect on the definition of abuse and on how to raise a family in the “right” way. James Baldwin had heard about the stories of Emmitt Till’s murder because of the allegation of whistling after a white woman in Mississippi. However, he only knew of this through the national media attention that it garnered. It was not a common nor widely accepted practice in Chicago. The regular occurrence of lynching —without retribution— had become part of the post-Emancipation terrorism that Black southerners endured regularly. Young people had to be affected by that type of evil behavior and made decisions as a result: fleeing home because of minor infractions, leaving loved ones, changing names, raising children in strict households, having many children just in case of premature death. While it can be argued that David Baldwin does not deserve our sympathy, we do not have the luxury of his viewpoint. He, in fact, may have created this strict, oppressive environment to save his children from the fates of those he witnessed while growing up in the South. There is some honor in his ability to execute a plan to create a family that could survive into the next generation.
When Our Heroes Have Flaws
Many of us were disappointed in James Baldwin when we read his conversation with Audre Lorde, “Revolutionary Hope.” Throughout their discussion, Lorde continuously mentions the plight of Black women, saying, “The cops are killing the men and the men are killing the women. I’m talking about rape. I’m talking about murder.” She wants Baldwin to acknowledge the physical violence perpetrated on Black women. He does acknowledge it, but he also excuses it. Baldwin replies that for Black men who beat up women, “it’s his responsibility, but it’s not his fault.” Baldwin is correct – racism in American society absolutely contributed to this trend, but then Baldwin adds, “It hurts me at least as much as it hurts you.” Here is where a female reader might become frustrated. How could it hurt him as much? The Black woman being physically beaten at home is certainly suffering more than the man beating her. Why doesn’t Baldwin understand that? Is he not listening to Lorde? She agrees with him that they are both suffering, but she wants him to recognize the unique harm faced by someone who is both Black and a woman.
In this discussion, however, it seems that Baldwin never reaches that point. He persistently tries to recenter the conversation around Black men, telling Lorde that “in this republic the only real crime is to be a Black man.” When she argues that being Black is the crime, not being a Black man, he maintains his position. After they go back and forth about the challenges faced by Black men and women, Baldwin eventually gives one or two word answers. He never affirms what Lorde tells him and it does not seem that they even agree by the end. Lorde backs him into a corner and he seemingly gives up, but he never admits his misunderstanding. While Baldwin is a brilliant participant in the civil rights movement, he fails in this exchange to stick up for women. I was reminded of Baldwin’s flaws as a social critic while watching MLK/FBI this weekend. Martin Luther King is an imperfect figure as well. While his contribution to the civil rights movement is undeniable, he was not a faithful husband. Despite working as a pastor and using his moral code as the foundation for many of his arguments, he frequently broke those moral rules. This information is undoubtedly disappointing, but it doesn’t unwrite the work he’s done for Black Americans, just as Baldwin’s unsatisfactory responses to Lorde do not discredit his achievements as a social critic. It is unfair to hold our heroes on great pedestals and expect them to be flawless, as many do with King especially. Instead, we must see them as human.
The White Liberal
I have been thinking a lot about our discussion from class the other day in which Professor Kinyon was talking about how the white liberal is the most dangerous person in the fight against racism. It is sad because I can see the truth to that statement in a lot of individuals whom I personally know. Rather than being explicitly racist in their thoughts and actions, these individuals are apathetic to the injustice that is occurring because they do not see it as directly affecting them or as being something that is within their power or control to try to change. This passivity only breeds more disinterest and a lack of empathy, and it allows individuals to avoid thinking or caring about other people. If everyone felt this way – that they do not have to do anything because they are “not part of the problem” – our society would lose any altruism that it can attempt to claim.
We are called to care for others, even those who do not have anything in common with us, and to fight for others when we are put into a position of privilege. We should use this privilege to help and speak up for those who are being oppressed. Often, those who have privilege can speak to the oppressors in a way that the oppressed themselves cannot, and it is because of this, among other reasons, that the privileged individuals have the responsibility to fight against injustice. This frequently requires the privileged people to give space and opportunities for the oppressed to speak their truth and to listen empathetically when they do so. This concept of the passivity of the white liberal makes me think a lot about the difference between being “not racist” and being “anti-racist.” In order to fight against the racism that permeates every aspect of our society, it is not enough to just not be part of the problem; rather, anyone who wants to be a true ally needs to actively work to fix the problem.
Canon & Satire
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.
Woke White Liberals
Our conversation surrounding The Handmaid’s Tale and its appeal to the martyr complexes of white women has caused me to reexamine the role of white liberals in social justice and their reception of Baldwin’s writing. Audre Lorde draws attention to the passivity found in white women in issues of racism and discrimination in “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism” saying, “I have seen situations where white women hear a racist remark, resent what has been said, become filled with fury, and remain silent because they are afraid.” We continued this discussion in class and considered how the largest perpetrators of social racism are white liberals that adopt “polite racism” and excuse their own racial prejudices while denouncing systemic discrimination. I think comedian Bill Burr’s opening joke for SNL about white women and woke culture sums it up nicely: “Somehow, white women swung their Gucci-booted feet over the fence of oppression and stuck themselves at the front of the line.” The issue of white women using sexism to refuse to accept their white privilege undermines racial progress and intersectional feminism. Also, performative activism executed by white liberals over the summer during the public surge of the BLM movement undermined effective change that the movement was trying to bring about.
Civil rights activists like Baldwin and King have both had to deal with the backlash from white audiences and must have considered whether or not to adapt their messages to gain the support of white liberals. In “Why James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time Still Matters” Edmonds calls attention to the shift in Baldwin’s writing and his growing dismissal of the white gaze’s influence. He writes, “Lyne’s article narrates the history of Baldwin’s writing in conjunction with the development of his politics, that is, from being ‘the darling of the white liberal establishment” to developing a politics that “pushed him beyond the boundaries of canonization.” Baldwin’s later work is described as becoming more bitter, but also more radical as it shifts away from cold war liberalism. Edmonds expands on this saying, “Written during the middle period of his career, The Fire Next Time bridges these categories. Although it doesn’t reflect the “Black Marxism” Lyne finds in Baldwin’s later works, it isn’t interested in liberal integrationism either.” However, after this work’s immediate publication, it was criticized by white audiences for trying to goad white people into action and Kenneth Rexroth in the San Francisco Examiner wrote, “The Fire Next Time is designed to make white liberals feel terribly guilty and to scare white reactionaries into running and barking fits.”
Considering this context, I wasn’t sure what to make of this line in “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew” where Baldwin asks his nephew to find a level of forgiveness for white people. “The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand” (294). I thought Baldwin was being rather generous here and I struggle to see his view of white innocence in a history they “do not understand,” yet created and continue to repeat.
Writers Who Bear Witness
As I read the essays this week, I was really moved by Jacqueline Woodson’s reflection on how much James Baldwin meant to her. It is especially meaningful to read the end of her essay where Woodson recalls thinking, “But we were supposed to meet one day,” when she learns of Baldwin’s death. Her description of feeling close to Baldwin and looking to him as “a source of strength and light” is a testament that Baldwin truly was the prophet he believed himself to be.
Woodson says that she and many of her fellow writers of color “believe that we’re writing because Baldwin wrote, that history repeats itself and continues to need its witnesses.” I think that Woodson’s reflection parallels “My Dungeon Shook” in how both authors regard the importance of memory and the relationship with history through multiple generations. For Baldwin, writing was a profoundly important way of bearing witness to race relations in the United States, as well as America’s broken relationship with history.
“My Dungeon Shook,” a letter Baldwin wrote to his nephew James, reveals how Baldwin saw the importance of passing on his memories to the next generation, so that the younger James could know his roots and not be trapped in white constructs. Baldwin tells his nephew that white Americans are “trapped in a history which they do not understand” (294). But as Woodson’s testimony reveals, in voices like Baldwin’s lie the hope that the U.S. can at last learn from its history. Woodson discusses all of the different social movements that she has witnessed, seeing activism by ACT UP and Black Lives Matter and trans rights advocates over the years. Throughout her life, Baldwin was always present as someone from whose “fearlessness” she could learn. Woodson articulates that Baldwin’s witness shaped how she saw writers and activists passing on what they saw and intervening in American history to create a better future.
Baldwin’s letter is not just to his nephew, but to all of us, just as Woodson’s story now bears witness. Only by listening to and learning from prophetic voices like Baldwin and Woodson can Americans, as Baldwin puts it, “make America what America must become” (294).
What’s the Use of Non-Violence in 2021
I cannot remember exactly when Stokely Carmichael said this but in reference to Martin Luther King Jr., he said “‘Dr. King’s policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.’”
When we think about Martin Luther King Jr. and even when we read about how James Baldwin thought and felt about Martin Luther King Jr., his legacy is non-violence. He exists in the American imagination as a saint, close to Jesus in virtue for his ability to turn the other cheek. However, it is clear (seeing the state that we are in today in 2021) that sainthood and turning the other cheek does nothing for the state of the world and the plight of Black Americans.
As Stokely Carmichael states, America and other Western countries feel no remorse for what they have done to or continue to do to Black people. They do not believe that what they have done in the name of extending their reach, power, and riches was and is wrong (it was and is all for the greater good of their reign, country, or empire). They feel no compassion for the plight and the state of Black people in their countries to this very day. If America and other Western countries felt any compassion for Black people and Black nations they would not have murdered Black political leaders, unlawfully jailed Black political leaders, and usurped democratically elected Black officials in Black nations.
If non-violence worked, why do Western nations still have their foot in Africa, Haiti, and Latin America? Why does the IMF put these nations into debt? Why do white billionaires determine whether or not these nations deserve the covid vaccine? Why are Black people second class citizens who are killed and assaulted for sport or for simply existing?
We have advanced past the age of non-violence. When I say this, I do not necessarily mean that we have to start a revolution (although we really need one) but people need to stop thinking that allowing others to walk over you is going to get the attention of those in power to make them change things.
My sophomore year, I was in Professor Pierce’s class about the civil rights movement starting from the 1800’s. We read and I wrote a paper on a book titled: Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power. This book is a biography of Robert F. Williams who was a part of the NAACP, at the same time as Martin Luther King Jr., but was also militant. There is one story about how on his way home, Robert F. Williams was being tailed by these white men who planned to kill him and once he got home, his wife came outside with a shotgun and that was the end of that attempt on Robert F. Williams’ life.
Another story is that once Robert F. Williams was asked to step down from his position in the NAACP, one of the girls who was integrating into a white school essentially said that his way of fighting racism (ie: not being non-violent) was wrong. Later on, once her house was being shot into and terrorized, Robert F. Williams sent her a letter asking her if she still did not believe in owning a gun to protect herself and her family.
Excuse my language but Robert F. Williams did not take any shit. He was the embodiment of “I won’t start shit but I will end it if I have to”. His ability to utilize and teach others how to utilize guns as a form of protection essentially saved Black lives in the town he lived in many times. Out of all the people in the movement (Martin, Malcolm, Medgar), Robert F. Williams died peacefully of old age. His idea of protest is essentially what we need to have in 2021. No more being sitting ducks allowing things to happen to us.
A Comment on Integration
In “Nobody Knows My Name,” James Baldwin recounts a quote from a “very light Negro” in Alabama who says that “Integration has always worked very well in the South, after the sun goes down” (Baldwin 207). He records another African-American who says, “It’s not miscegenation unless a black man’s involved” (Baldwin 207). In recounting these quotes, Baldwin makes a distinct claim about the societal outrage over integration. Society in general, and Southern society in particular, did not feel the same discomfort with the association of African-Americans and white people in all situations. Rather, Baldwin seems to assert that the issue with integration is specifically the association between African-American men and white women. Of course, as Baldwin’s first quote claims, associations between Black women and white men could happen at night with little to no comment, even if the Black woman was sexually assaulted. By framing integration in this manner, Baldwin makes integration an issue for the Black man. Strikingly, his framing matches the historical approach to the civil rights movement, which predominately highlights men like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, and Bobby Seale.
Yet this alluring framing threatens to deemphasize Black women’s voices in the South, the country, and the Civil Rights Movement. If we view integration as principally concerning Black men, we align with Baldwin’s male-centric understanding of racial and gender dynamics in the middle of the twentieth century. Audrey Lorde, on the other hand, provides an important, different perspective on the civil rights movement that works against this bias toward male-centric political action. By forcing Baldwin to dissect his close association between Blackness and manhood, Lorde shows that any conversation around integration is more than simply a Black man’s argument. Underlying these conversations is a history of Black women raped by white man seemingly without concern of or even principally because of the color of their skin. The challenge in Lorde’s conversation with Baldwin is to recognize this history and think how the hypocrisy around interactions between races affects Black women in addition to Black men. Baldwin seems reluctant to make this connection but understanding the racial dynamics in the South requires such an investigation.
On Having “The Talk”
Summer 2020, I found myself furiously googling “how to talk to child about racism and police brutality + black parents.” My little brother who is 8 years old and the most sheltered child I’ve ever encountered, was getting curious about why my parents always shut off the news when he was within earshot and why his cousins were talking about George Floyd. My google searches led me to many videos, articles, books, and essays and that was the first time I read Baldwin’s “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew.”
I had the opportunity of learning what it means to be black when I came to the United States through many painful experiences. Unlike my brother, I’ve been going to PWI since I began my journey in the American education complex. I also grew up understanding that many of my home country’s issues stemmed from the involvement of the United States. It was hard to not let the bitterness and anger that I felt influence the talk that I needed to have with my brother. I read Baldwin’s essay many times and outlined points to focus on with my brother. In my copy of Baldwin’s essay, I highlighted: “you were born where you were born and faced the future you faced because you were black and for no other reason” and annotated “possible point after talking about history of slavery. make it kid-friendly.”
Though Baldwin’s essay talks a lot about systemic racism and how to approach integration, I focused a lot on “there is no reason for you to try to become like white people” and “these men are your brothers — your lost, younger brothers.” It felt hard saying that to my brother. Especially when I get pangs of worry when my father doesn’t pick up his phone. Especially when I remember family members’ deadly encounters with the police. And especially when I recall the “Black Lives Matter is a terrorist group,” and the “there isn’t any racism in America” from our “innocent and well-meaning” neighbors who would sit and chat in the community park. The same people who came with soup and baked goods after my father had surgery. The same neighbors who took turns babysitting my brother when my grandmother was out of the country.