James Baldwin

We cannot be free until they are free.

James Baldwin, Collected Essays, 295.

Given the recent revitalization of efforts to whitewash United States history, James Baldwin’s commentary on mid-twentieth century race relations, especially as documented during his travels throughout the South, is ever relevant. Perhaps most egregiously, Florida’s new teaching standards include instruction on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit” (Atterbury “New Florida teaching standards say African Americans received some ‘personal benefit’ from slavery”). Florida is joined by over 11 other states, predominantly located in the South, that have enacted restrictions on teaching the long (and enduring) history of racism with the intent to avoid making (White) students feel guilty for their race. 

In my own conversations with friends and family about these very pieces of legislation, I often hear some variation of the phrase “I am not responsible for what my ancestors did” in response. Likely a result of my strong aversion to any form of confrontation, especially with loved ones, and despite my wholehearted belief in the necessity of learning the complete and unfettered history of the United States, I have always struggled to enunciate a compelling counter to their protests. For this reason, I found James Baldwin’s “My Dungeon Shook” especially useful. In this essay, Baldwin redefines our understanding of accountability, offering a new perspective on what it means for White people to acknowledge and own their responsibility and contributions to the oppression of Black people. On the centennial anniversary of the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin writes to his nephew James, “You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free” (295). This freedom, Baldwin argues, is contingent on love; in this same text, he calls on Black Americans to “with love, force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change” (294). Yet, 80 years later in 2023, the White majority continues to flee from this reality via the aforementioned attacks on school curriculums, continuous acquittals of police brutality, and more.

Sure, maybe White people are not to blame for what their ancestors did. But we are certainly presently guilty should we continue to turn a blind eye and exhibit indifference while the pain and denigration of our Black peers, coworkers, professors, friends, and bosses are not only overlooked but erased altogether. As Baldwin emphasizes in “My Dungeon Shook,” we cannot move forward towards a true future of racial equality and national brotherhood without first knowing, understanding, and acknowledging our past. Without doing so, White people, let alone Black people, are not free, to use Baldwin’s language, to be part of this path forward. We have a duty to run to this dark history, not from it.

 “Why James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time Still Matters” by Orlando Edmonds is a great demonstration of how Baldwin’s exploration of racism is not limited to a specific era. Many of the questions that Baldwin poses and the topics he addresses in The Fire Next Time and in many of his other pieces, are problems that those involved in Black liberation movements are still confronting and attempting to solve today. This article focuses on the Black Lives Matter movement and states that “critics fault BLM for reintroducing the problem of race and its significance in a supposedly “post-racial” society” (Edmonds 2016). The article also introduces criticisms on how “the Black Lives Matter movement is [often] interpreted cynically, with emphasis placed on its eruptive quality, rather than seeing the outburst as a consequence of its calmer voices going unheard” (Edmonds, 2016). Oftentimes, many think that when African Americans, in our contemporary world with BLM and during Black liberation movements like the Civil Rights Movement, spark liberation movements in an effort to seek better conditions, equality, and justice for the way they are treated in America, they are seen as being confrontational, aggressive, violent, and anti-white. However, this is truly not the case. 

In “The Ballot or the Bullet” a speech given by Malcolm X in 1964, he speaks on this issue. Malcolm says that in speaking about radical forms of liberation and Black nationalism, which is a movement that advocates for the establishment of a separate and unified Black identity in a more radical way, “it doesn’t mean that we’re anti-white, but it does mean we’re anti-exploitation, we’re anti-degradation, we’re anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn’t want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us (Malcolm 1964).  Like Malcolm is saying in “The Ballot or the Bullet” and Orlando Edmonds is saying in this article, because the respectful and peaceful forms of protest have not been successful in the past, it is through these radical forms of expression that Black Americans can truly reach their goals (Edmonds, 2016). Furthermore, it is not that Black Americans are protesting against white people and white dominated and governed systems because of the conflicts with race in what is supposed to be a post-racial society. The protests are in an effort to correct the injustices that still exist today. Baldwin would have most likely agreed with this approach as well. As he writes in The Fire Next Time, “now there is simply no possibility of a real change in the Negro’s situation without the most radical and far-reaching American society itself – its fundamental assumptions and underlying logic – needs scrutiny” (Edmonds, 2016). 

The assertions made by Edmonds, Malcolm, and Baldwin all align with the idea that in order to dismantle the systemic injustices and racism that existed during Baldwin’s time, during Malcolm’s time, and now during our time, the problem of race needs to be reintroduced to society and a critical examination needs to be made of the structures, systems, and even people that perpetuate these injustices. It is very important to recognize that the problem African Americans face is a systemic one that they deserve to fight against either by being radical, respectful, or protesting in movements like BLM today. Furthermore, the problem is certainly not an inherent opposition to any specific group. It just so happens that it is one specific group that is continuously inflicting oppression and racism. Insights like Malcolm X’s, Baldwin’s, and Edmond’s often go overlooked and unnoticed by many. Understanding something as simple as this is one of the keys to understanding the purpose and reasoning behind Black liberation movements, including the Civil Rights Movement and BLM. The fight and movements toward equality and justice is not about being anti-white just because. The fight and protests are justified because oppression, exploitation, and degradation of African Americans still exists, perpetuating a cycle of systemic inequalities and injustices that unfortunately continue to plague America today. This persistent cycle and denial of African Americans’ basic human rights and dignity necessitates a collective effort to dismantle these structures and pave the way for true liberation, justice, and equality which is what both Malcolm X and Baldwin encourage African Americans to do in their work.

In “My Dungeon Shook,” Baldwin’s letter to his nephew is very personal and shows a side of Baldwin unlike the one portrayed in his fiction. In the letter, Baldwin is preparing his nephew for the racism he will soon confront in America and which he will soon begin to realize is an aspect that will affect his everyday life. However, despite the racism that has corrupted and plagued the world, Baldwin has hope for his nephew. Before even getting into the intricacies of the letter, Baldwin writes, “I tell you this because I love you, and please don’t you ever forget it” (Baldwin, CE, 291). 

As someone who has clearly developed wisdom through his own experiences, Baldwin begins with a powerful line, “you can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger” (Baldwin, CE, 291). Baldwin gets straight to the point. Rather than advising his nephew on how to navigate the world as a Black man, he is preparing his nephew for the white problem not the Negro one. As Baldwin writes earlier in the letter, it is because of what the white people said that his brother and his nephew’s father died. “He really believed what the white people said about him” (Baldwin, CE, 291). This line reminded me of another passage by Baldwin in No Name in the Street. In the passage, Baldwin ‘exposes’ white people and calls out how they are the perptrators of racism and “the Negro problem” in society. Baldwin writes, “ 

The failure of the private life has always had the most debating effect on American public conduct, and on black-white relations. If Americans were not so terrified of their private selves, they would never have needed to invent and could never have become so dependent on what they still call “the Negro problem.” This problem which they invented in order to safeguard their purity, has made of them criminals and monsters, and it is destroying them; and this is not from anything blacks may or may not be doing but because of the role a guilty and constricted white imagination has assigned to the blacks” (Baldwin, CE, p. 386). 

The role of the guilty that was assigned to Baldwin’s brother and his nephew’s father and his belief that he really was the nigger the white world viewed him as is what killed him. As something almost inevitable because whites choose to privatize their life and operate on racism and fear, Baldwin wants to avoid this for his nephew. 

I found Baldwin’s transition into emphazising the power of perception in shaping an individuals’ reality very important. By highlighting that it is because of the racist mindset that white Americans possess that has nothing to do with what Black people are actually doing, Baldwin cautions his nephew and all Black people against internalizng the derogatory names imposed by the white world, the guilt, and more. The “private life” of white people has a negative effect on Black people more than many understand and realize and it has a great potential to create even worse impacts if Black people are to believe the nonsense white poeple create to rationalize their private life. As “authors of devastation,” white people are not innoccent. “It is the innocence which constitues the crime” Baldwin writes (Baldwin, CE, p. 292). The privilege that white people posses that grants them the power to assign these roles and impart these ideas onto society has more to do with white Americans using Negros and inventing the Negro problem as a way for them to grapple with their own insecurities and fears, making them the true “criminals and monsters” (Baldwin, CE, p. 386). Due to all of this, Baldwin explains to his nephew that “you were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason” (Baldwin, CE, p. 293). “You were not expected to aspire to excellence” thus, you should not “testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear” (Baldwin, CE, p. 293). 

Baldwin’s encouragement to his nephew to cultivate a sense of himself, remembering his humanity, his generation, and his history, in relation to the external narraitves that seek to define Negros as the problems and the monsters in society is phenomenal. He does something here by revealing the dynamics and attitudes of white people that not many do. Nevertheless, “A Letter to My Nephew” is very significant and continues to be relevant in understanding the complexities of race relations in America. Instead of placing the burden solely on Black people, Baldwin (in his political era) directs the attention to the problems within the white community and challenges the conventional narrative that does not often place responsibility where it belongs.

I watched the MLK/FBI movie before reading Baldwin’s No Name in the Street, which ultimately offered me a much more nuanced approach to the tapes and FBI targeting of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I was aware of the tapes and their revealed contents, but the extent to which the FBI’s involvement in trying to take down MLK surprised me, especially given how personal a task this was for J. Edgar Hoover. I did appreciate the reiteration at the end of the movie that the actions of Hoover and the FBI were fully funded and supported by the state, regardless of how personal its motivations were for Hoover. The White House’s involvement in the surveillance and exposing of MLK’s private life is a direct violation of constitutional rights, but that is still undercut at every turn. This should not have surprised me as much as it did. McCarthyism, Red Scare tactics, and the government’s actions against the Civil Rights Movement seem criminally under-taught, partially because they obviously show the government has no real care for its citizens, and partially because omitting these contexts leaves out a lot of nuance to very important events. Obviously doing so would erode trust in the government, which is already at an all-time-low, but I think constructive distrust of the government is warranted. 

This movie also highlights the absolute ludicrousness of modern complaints about being in a leftist police state. Claims that lawsuits and basic accountability are political tyranny while Civil Rights and BLM protestors are shot, tear-gassed, assaulted, wire-tapped, bugged, defamed, and assassinated are utterly ridiculous, and the ultimate double standard on what it means to be White versus what it means to be Black in America. The involvement of the Kennedy’s and LBJ made the FBI actions under Hoover a literal police state. 

As for Baldwin, he offers a far better insight while talking about the different worlds of public and private life. Baldwin refers to his far more intimate relationship with MLK and also points out that many people, like his friend back in Harlem, completely idolized MLK without knowing MLK himself. Not that this takes away from MLK’s character, it just serves as a very valuable reminder that we tend to idolize public and historical figures that we do not know. Remembering that those figures are people like us, with flaws like us, would make the contents of the tapes, while still being problematic and indicative of another double-standard against women in the Civil Rights Movement, be less consequential to the controversy and legacy of MLK. And there should be no challenge to the legacy of MLK. 

Lastly, I am honestly unsure about the revealing of the tapes in 2027 as the movie references. I think they should be publicized for nothing else but transparency, but I ultimately think Baldwin’s point is the most important one. We should not ignore those tapes, but we should not let them make us forget that the people on the other side of the line, whether that’s race, culture, wealth, status, or history, are people too.

I was interested in the different worldviews in Toibin’s Love in a Dark Time, especially after we discussed how Toibin’s Irish upbringing might limit him to the nuances of American societal issues which Baldwin writes about. Not to say that Toibin’s essays on American writers are flawed, I quite appreciated his thoughts on Baldwin. But I do think he lacks some emotional context of how deeply rooted racism, violence, and sexuality are in every facet of American society. 

To start, Ireland as Toibin describes it was and is dominated by the Catholic church. He references Ingles’ work that the church was “a fundamental force that shaped Irish society, dominated the way we dealt with our families, [and] the way we gathered as a group” (253). The power and influence of the Catholic church served as a main opposition, through direct and indirect means, to homosexuality. In this sense, I think there is a line of connection between Baldwin and Toibin. Baldwin describes how the pentecostal church shaped his family in Notes of a Native Son and Go Tell It on the Mountain, particularly via his father. I recently read a similar story called Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan that represents the church’s power similarly as a well-meaning man wrestles with intervening in the infamous Magdalene Laundries, in which women were practically incarcerated and coerced into forced labor by the church. Toibin brings a deeply emotional and close account of the struggles with homosexuality in Ireland. I have no intention of diminishing those experiences and stories.  I do however wish to point out that while Toibin deeply connects with Baldwin’s work, he does not acknowledge how inevitably tied race and sexuality are in America. This much is shown by his interpretation of Baldwin’s Going to Meet the Man. The short story is shocking, gruesome, and very heavy-handed, but it is also a very personal account of violence and hatred mixed in with sexuality. I think that without a full understanding of race in America, Toibin fails to fully grasp the mixture of race and sexuality despite his meticulous readings. I do not mean to fault Toibin for this, I simply think that it is indicative of how “American” the problem of race is as it is baked into every social structure, system, and identity.

When reading “The Male Prison” I began to better understand the theme of masculinity in Giovanni’s Room. While most of Baldwin’s works explore the relationships of men to other people, Giovanni’s Room is the first text where there is an emphasis on the main character’s relationship predominantly with other men. Furthermore, in both texts, there is a clear relationship between masculinity and sexuality and after our discussions in class comparing David, to Jacques, to Giovanni, and more, I began to see this relationship much better. However, it was when reading “The Male Prison” that the characters’ roles of Jacques, David, and Giovanni became even more transparent.

 In “The Male Prison” when Baldwin wrote, “the arguments…as to whether or not homosexuality is natural seems to me completely pointless…it seems clear that no matter what…the answer can never be yes. And one of the reasons for this is that it would rob the normal…of their very sense of security and order,” I immediately thought of David (Baldwin, 232). Throughout Giovanni’s Room, David maintains a heterosexual relationship with Hella, despite his relationships and feelings for Giovanni. Having Hella around brings “security and order” to David’s life since having a woman, rather than a man, represents the socially acceptable and “American” heterosexual relationship that David seems to keep running to. Additionally in “The Male Prison,” Baldwin writes that Madeleine is “the ideal” for Gide (Baldwin, 233). He states that Gide “would have been compelled to love her as a woman, which he could not have done except physically…He loved her as a woman, only in the sense that no man could have held the place in Gide’s dark sky which was held by Madeleine” (Baldwin 233-234). To translate this into the world of David, Hella, and Giovanni, David really loves Hella on a physical level, or at least that is how I see it as. When Hella returns from Spain and the two progress in their relationship, David continuously thinks about Giovanni, because that is who his love is for. Like I mentioned earlier, Hella simply serves as the ideal woman for the ideal relationship for David. He knew that “no man could hold the place in his sky” that Hella could hold because David is uncomfortable with the idea of loving a man and having a homosexual relationship with Giovanni. 

Later on on page 234 of “The Male Prison,” Baldwin continues reiterating this point when he writes, “the horrible thing about the phenomenon of present-day homosexuality, the horrible thing which lies curled at …the heart of Gide’s [David’s] trouble and…the reason that he [is] so clung to Madeleine, is that today’s unlucky deviate can only save himself by the most tremendous exertion of all his forces from falling into an underworld in which he never meets either men or women, where it is impossible to have either a lover or a friend…” (Baldwin 234). Throughout Giovanni’s Room, we read through the mind of David and particularly see how he views characters like Jacques. As the novel progresses, David becomes ambivalent about Jacques because of Jacques’s openness about his homosexuality and acceptance of his lifestyle. Thus, when reading this line by Baldwin, I also made the connection between David and Jacques. David remains clung to Madeleine and clung to the idea of heterosexuality because he does not want to be like Jacques. David is repelled by Jacques’s openness about his sexuality while he is struggling to come to terms with his. In addition to this, Jacques, as someone who has fully accepted his homosexuality, struggles to meet both men and women and struggles to find a lover or a friend, a topic we discussed in class. In seeing this, David cannot accept a similar life for himself so he deviates even more from accepting his homosexuality. He does not want to fall into “the underworld” that Baldwin writes about in “The Male Prison.”

I could go on and on about the connection between “The Male Prison” and Giovanni’s Room but I am afraid this blog post would become too long. However, I am happy that I read “The Male Prison” because if reaffirmed a lot for me and provided me with great insights which are certianly useful as we continue to explore Baldwin’s work that deals with sexuality.

A line that stuck out to to me was David’s constant talk about being American. It was a way that was similar to how he viewed his sexuality. I believe that the belief that people go around Europe and explore their sexuality openly and honestly is a real though in many peoples minds. Meanwhile in America, people are more closed-minded. In one example from Giovanni’s Room, there is a quote that reads ‘… he said that you were just an American boy, after all doing things in France which you would not dare to do at home, and that you would leave me very soon.’ This speaks to the closeted views of Americans and the risky views of the French, which is not something stated often in this book. I think that David struggles with being American and a homosexual for the very same reasons.

Being in America, David talks about his sexual experience with Joey. This was an event filled with shame and discomfort. Though it felt right with Joey, David still decided to never speak about this event and to associate it with someone who was not truly him, though it was. David continues on to say ‘And I resented this: resented being called an American (and resented resenting it) because it seemed to make me nothing more than that, whatever that was; and I resented being called not an American because it seemed to make me nothing.’ This line alone to me speaks to David’s views on homosexuality as well. I think that David knows he is homosexual, but resents being called that, and he also resents resenting that fact. I think it is hard to dislike a part of yourself, and David resents both his American identity that makes him stick out in foreign countries, while he also resents being gay because it makes I’m different as well. The sense of shame follows shame follows David around like a scary rumor. David seems to find shame in most situations, which are all likely linked to how he grew up and the shame he has felt since childhood.

In Giovanni’s Room, the character David is an American man living and navigating European society. There are many different places in the novel where the contrasts between Europe and America are clear and one of them is in the context of David’s masculinity and his conflict with homosexuality. 

From the beginning of the novel, it is clear that David struggles with his sexuality. David has his first homosexual relationship with a boy named Joey and immediately after their sexual encounter, it is evident that David goes through an emotional crisis about his identity and the expectations that society has placed on him that affects that. David states that after him and Joey spent their night together that he lost his “manhood.” He states “But Joey is a boy” (Baldwin 226). The power of Joey’s masculinity “made [David] suddenly afraid. [Joey’s] body suddenly seemed the black opening of a cavern in which [he] would be tortured….in which [he] would lose his manhood (Baldwin 226). Later on on that same page, David’s shame and guilt even resorts to his thinking of his father and what he would think of David had he known about his relationship with Joey and his relationship with his sexuality and that again brings him more fear and shame. 

I think that due to the American societal standards that stereotypes annd stigamtizes homosexuality, same-sex relationships, and their relationship with masculinity or femininty, David begins to internalize his masculinity and what that means to him. And for David, his “American” view of masculinity does not exist with a man whether that be Joey or Giovanni. Therefore, in attempt to maintain his manhood and his masculinity, David resorts to his heterosexual relationship with Hella and a denial of his true love and desire for Giovanni. 

I also think that David’s relationship with his father has a lot to do with his acceptance or rather lack of acceptance of his sexuality. In contexts like after having slept with Joey and after his relations with Giovanni, David feels the shame and fear of losing his manhood and often thinks of his father and when he does, it represses his feelings even more. Overall, David’s relationships that he has in France with Jacques, Guillame, and Giovanni are very complex and interesting and when looking at them in depth and in contrast to how the European characters in the novel dealt with their sexualities and homosexuality (or at least through the eyes of David), there are many apparent differences. Furthermore, although I only touched on it in this response, David’s father and his masculinity has definitely influenced David’s idea of masculinity and because it reflects the traditional American masculinity and enforces heterosexuality rather than homosexuality, David clearly feels as though he must conform to those expectations rather than exploring his sexuality with men.