James Baldwin

Even though I have not read Madeleine, the similarities outlined by Baldwin between this work and Giovanni’s Room are hard to miss. In my last blog post and in my presentation about Baldwin and queer identity, I alluded to the idea of inauthenticity through David’s inability to accept his attraction and love for Giovanni, and I will expand upon this theme further in this blog post.

In “The Male Prison,” Baldwin writes that “it is not necessary to despise people who are one’s inferiors — whose inferiority, by the way, is amply demonstrated by the fact that they appear to relish, without guilt, their sensuality.” This reminds me of the way David resents Giovanni and how he sees Giovanni as someone who is inferior to him just because Giovanni has accepted who he was and who he loved “without guilt.” This could also be compared to the characters of Jacques and Guillaume, but for them it is not so much “sensuality” as it is power and dominance over others. In fact, for them, “it is impossible to have either a lover or a friend” (The Male Prison) because of the ways in which their wealth is intertwined with their masculinity, and how that affects their sexual and romantic encounters: “the possibility of genuine human involvement has altogether ceased.” Jacques says that his “encounters are shameful… because there is no affection in them, and no joy. It’s like putting an electric plug in a dead socket. Touch, but no contact. All touch, but no contact and no light.” When one does not examine how their masculine identities influence their relationships with other men, therein lies a double edged sword of dehumanising others and being dehumanised themselves. 

Men uphold toxic patriarchal values that end up hurting themselves almost as much as it hurts women. Baldwin writes in The Male Prison: “when men can no longer love women they also cease to love or respect or trust each other, which makes their isolation complete. Nothing is more dangerous than this isolation, for men will commit any crimes whatever rather than endure it.” David is unable to fully trust and love Giovanni because being with him reminds him of this prison of heteronormativity that he ensnares himself in, because to leave the prison is to leave the majority and be isolated. To leave the prison is to be “dirty” and live a life of shame. In David and Giovanni’s confrontation, Giovanni phrases this perfectly when he says “You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love.” When David is in the prison he cannot fully love Hella, but when he “endures the isolation” outside the prison to be with Giovanni, he still seeks the comfort and familiarity of the prison in which he grew up.

“But I’m a man,” cries David, “a man! What do you think can happen between us?” to which Giovanni responds “You know very well… what can happen between us. It is for that reason you are leaving me.” In the end, David cannot endure the pain of an authentic life. He cannot see Giovanni as a lover or a friend, and is afraid of him because he embodies the acceptance and authenticity that David views to be impossible for him to achieve.

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.

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!