James Baldwin

While reading part 1 of Giovanni’s room, I couldn’t help but focus on the shame that is surrounding the story. Right from the start of the book, we read about David and the first man he had ever been with, Joey. The relationship was short-lived and again, filled with shame. On page 9, it states ‘ I could have cried, cried for shame and terror, cried for not understanding how this could have happened to me.’ I am currently taking a class called ‘Perspective on Gender’, in which we constantly talk about shame. We recently watched a movie about the AIDs epidemic and how there was so much shame surrounding the diagnosis. Obviously, this is not necessarily the exact same way that Baldwin is attempting to express the shame of homosexuality. For a long time, HIV/AIDS was viewed as the ‘gay’ diseases and was rarely talked about through media since people just thought that only one specific group of people would die. It was not until activist began to speak up, began to come together as one that the shame began to lift and in its place was an understanding. I believe that this is why it is so important for Baldwin to write about his shame.

Baldwin became a light in a dark tunnel for so many. He writes about how the shame can destroy relationships and people on the inside. The character of David becomes even more of an outcast to himself, which causes a rift to grow even bigger between him and his father. So much so that acting out becomes an outlet for all of David’s pent up emotions. The shame continues into Davids adult life since those feeling from childhood are never addressed. We see it in David’s time i the army, as well as with Giovanni. I believe that David asks Hella to marry him because of his shame. He could never be with a man before he first understand the clarity of who he is. Near the end of part 1, on page 64, Baldwin write ‘With everything in me screaming No! yet the sum of me sighed. Yes.‘ Yet, we all know even with that line, Bladwin’s shame is still there in his mind, body, and soul even when wanting it.

In The Male Prison and Going to Meet the Man, along with other more autobiographical works from Baldwin, the role of fathers in their sons’ masculinity stood out to me. As Baldwin has clearly shown, masculinity is clearly tied to sexuality, but most of my thoughts cover more general impressions of masculinity. I have no wish of invoking Freud or any other sex-linked psychologies, nor do I have a homosexual man’s insight into father-son relationships, but I’ve been avoiding the topic for long enough. 

I don’t know what a good father is. It very well may be true that relative to other fathers, mine is incredible. I do not see it that way. As loving as things may be now, my memory of that crucial fatherly guidance at a young age is sadly lacking. I remember tests and judgements. And my father once explained it to me like this: it is his job to make sure I am ready. That I am prepared enough, strong enough, and good enough in both a moral and general capacity. The phrase that strikes me most clearly is: “You are not a man until I say so.” I think it’s important to point out the good intentions here. My father wanted to make sure I was a good person. That seems pretty noble. He wanted me to be independent, honorable, intelligent, and compassionate. I aspire to be those things. It is fascinating and somewhat sad that we became so at-odds over the same goal. But that is my experience with masculinity, the keyword being enough. There seems to be a threshold, for literally everything from wit to sexual-performance. I learned very early on that every tiny thing, whether it was done with love or not, was a test. From everyone. Which means that everything can be failed. The price of failing those tests was not getting the respect, and much more importantly, the care that I needed. I say respect because that’s what I thought I had to earn in order to get help. I don’t know how universal that sentiment is, but a lot of my experiences with guys are in line with it. If we fail, we aren’t worthy of help, and therefore the only reliable source of support is yourself. And if you don’t trust yourself, because you keep failing, then you have nothing. I believe that is why a lot of men are so obstinate. There is a certain, albeit toxic, pride in passing those tests, even if they’re ultimately meaningless. At times it feels like that pride is all we have. It is a false pride, not a pride in yourself but a pride in your existence. Because a lot of us don’t like ourselves. And we’re wired, trained even, to ask for nothing, which means that if you don’t learn to ask, you drown or you take. I was fortunate enough to start learning, but only after my fair share of the aforementioned. 

I see a lot of that pride in Baldwin’s characters, and in his essays. It manifests as a refusal to accept, as self-hatred, anger, arrogance, or confidence. And once it’s learned it’s very hard to move past, because that is the way I think. That is the way I process the world and my place in it. So when Baldwin writes, “Since he clearly could not forgive himself for his anomaly” (234) in regards to Andre Gida, I see pride, refusing to shake a societal pressure because to do so would be to fail as he was taught. Of course, Baldwin’s treatment of Gida is opinion, as is my treatment of the topic. I’ve touched on a lot of the self-hatred and particularly the hatred that emerges as a result of being at odds with one’s identity and one’s expectations. I feel no need to reiterate those points, only to add that Jesse’s need for sexual release tied to violence and racism in Going to Meet the Man is one of the most grotesque and appalling manifestations of this pride (a head’s up would’ve been nice). Regardless, Baldwin concludes in agreement, describing the “male prison” as one born of isolation, built by “a most petulant and unmasculine pride” (235). I do this. A lot of my friends do this. We are isolated, too proud, afraid, or both, to ask for some meaningful company or conversation. We find our ways around it. Some are healthier than others, but for all the healthy practices in the world, I find myself repeatedly and illogically alone. In my experience, most of us just want to be held, though that does not help the overarching societal approach to masculinity. 

As a final note, none of this is meant to justify at all, least of all the longstanding societal restrictions, double-standards, and challenges facing women, and every other group for that matter. I simply wished to provide an insight, and possibly get a bit off my chest. Genuineness was requested of me and I hope I have provided.

Having recently read History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 in “Perspectives on Gender” with Professor Sara Marcus while beginning Giovanni’s Room in this class at the same time, I found these texts to be undeniably connected to one another. In History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault discusses the “repressive hypothesis” – an expression of the relationship between power and sex over time. Specifically, it holds that human beings have shifted from a time when they could speak freely about sex and sexuality to a period where these same things are not to be talked about or enjoyed. Foucault, however, rejects the repressive hypothesis, arguing that this very rise of repression had instead an effect opposite to silence. While acknowledging there were restrictions placed on discourse surrounding sex, Foucault contends that these same restrictions led to an “incitement to speak about [sex], and to do so more and more; a determination on the part of the agencies of power to hear it spoken about, and to cause it to speak through explicit articulation and endlessly accumulated detail” (18). 

With this being said, I see Giovanni’s Room as a piece that further complicates the relationship between power and sex that Foucault explores; I believe Baldwin’s work serves as evidence both in favor of and against Foucault’s analysis of the repressive hypothesis. On one hand, the theme of shame surrounding sex and nakedness that persists in Part 1 of Giovanni’s Room offers truth to the repressive hypothesis. This becomes evident as David recalls his relationship with his father: “What passed between us as masculine candor exhausted and appalled me. Fathers ought to avoid utter nakedness before their sons” (232). David is deeply uncomfortable by his father’s breaking from the silence surrounding sex and sexuality. David’s response to his father’s openness about these subjects can thus be read as an enforcement of the repressive hypothesis. Additionally, in describing his first encounters with Giovanni at the bar, David admits, “I was glad. I was only sorry that Jacques had been a witness. He made me ashamed. I hated him because he had now seen all that he had waited to see” (254). With the idea that a witness spreads the word to others, David again expresses disdain and fear for the discursive references to sex and sexuality Jacques might make about David. These feelings are exacerbated by the fact that this is a queer relationship and therefore subject to intensified scrutiny. 

Given the autobiographical nature of Baldwin’s work, these moments can be seen as a reflection of his personal sentiments. Yet despite the intense feelings of shame and desire for silence surrounding sex and sexuality that David expresses, in a Foucault-ian reading of this, he (David/Baldwin) also gives voice to these matters and brings them out of the shadow of silence. Through David’s relationship with both his father and Giovanni, Baldwin makes possible the very discussion regarding sex, pleasure, and queer love he tried to avoid. Admittedly, I was at first quite unconvinced by Foucault’s criticism of the repressive hypothesis. However, in reading Giovanni’s Room thus far, maybe he was on to something…

Malcolm X was a very influential, amicable, and talented speaker. So much so that the FBI and police force tracked his every move. What I was not aware of was that Malcolm X was also against integration. He saw integration and interracial marriage as unnecessary and wicked. I had never grown up with this perspective, I had always been taught that segregation was bad and the only solution on the table was integration. Today, we can see some of the fears that Malcolm X had in mind with regard to integration. On a trip to the South with a class I took at Notre Dame, we visited a couple of HBCUs with formally thriving communities that surrounded the institutions prior to integration. Movie theaters, grocery stores, and businesses all around: today, they can all be seen vacant, out of business, or run down completely. Malcolm X had the theory that this would be a possibility. Black business owners would not be able to thrive with so much competition against much larger white-owned businesses, and black businesses would go out of business. Malcolm X wanted separate and equal opportunities for everyone, but it seems that this would be much more challenging than the post-integration period. Of course, many black businesses exist today, but many were brought down because of the economic hardships of integration. Racial issues today can be intertwined with America’s capitalistic goals and can have horrendous outcomes in the future. While I still stand with the idea that integration would be the right solution to eliminate the “separate, but equal” mentality, I have come to understand some of the repercussions of this naive perspective. To be clear, I do not believe segregation should be upheld, but the United States has a moral obligation to offer some form of reparation for this type of disinvestment of Black Americans and revitalize the communities that were crushed during the 60s and 70s. We must remember that some Black-owned businesses were thriving in their time, consider the Tulsa massacred community which was referred to as the Black Wall Street before the complete destruction and great loss of lives and property.

When trying to understand the issues that we continue to read about in our readings, I have come to the conclusion that all of the issues in society stem from the lack of respect for the human person. In America, we live in a society that values the baring fruits of the capitalistic economic system that cycles through the poorest of the poor and most marginalized in order to squeeze out the most value for their work. This has always been the way in which it was done since colonizers arrived in the Americas. They violently took the land from Native Americans, placed Africans in shackles, transported them to a new continent, and forced them to work, and, when that was no longer acceptable, they continued to underpay immigrants, people of color, and anyone living under the poverty line and leave them with inhumane conditions. Slavery did not end just because it was not allowed, it evolved into a new system where it became acceptable once more. USA Today estimates that 27 million people are experiencing Modern Day Slavery, more than any time in history, and the United Nations has published reports demonstrating how Modern Day Slavery continues to exist around the world with the deprivation of human rights. It is impossible to find one solution for all of these problems, but there must be something we can do. Immigrants, people of color, and all those living in poverty are being consumed in the horrors of what was once abolished and people don’t seem to understand that these are reflections of what happened prior to the mid-1800s. The United States has a responsibility to end what it started and truly abolish the heinous crimes against people, especially because we all benefit from the outcomes of these terrors. We are tainted with blood on our hands.

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is not an over-exaggeration, especially when comparing it to a painting. Beauford Delaney’s Self Portrait shows an expression of fear, shock, and awareness in a single glance. Any quick synopsis of the masterpiece will highlight this feature, for instance, Dr. Thomas B. Cole summarizes this detail in his 2013 Art for Jama article saying “The left eyebrow is raised in an expression of alarm, but the lens of the right eye is a ghostly white” (Cole TB). This image on its own can say a lot about the times Delaney was alive. Segregation in the United States was normal and violence of homosexuality was rampant. Similar to James Baldwin, as Dr. Cole summarizes, Delaney finds comfort in moving to Europe, specifically Paris, where he is able to find some form of respect for his race and sexual orientation. This need to leave behind his home shows the grief Delaney had for his country and the cruelty he faced throughout his life. The portrait of himself shows with heavy bags under his eyes, a sign of a mature man, in this case, a person who has seen the awful ways of life in America and the complete disregard for life, especially that of Black and Homosexual communities. His left eye, “ghostly white,” gives an impression of a corpse, someone who has been deemed by society as insufficient and given less worth. These grave circumstances may be what have led him to go mad, Deleney passed away in an asylum in France after coming across psychological issues (Smithsonian). A portrait like this can represent many things, and it is important to take a moment and look further into the artwork to find the connections between artists and the issues they confront in their lives.

I have previously written about the disgusting actions of Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright’s Native Son, but I also think it is important to give my greater opinions on the importance of language in this novel. In class, we have discussed the differences between rape and sexual assault. Many in class believe that Bigger raped Mary in the first part of the novel, but I have been led to believe by the narrator that he was a case of sexual assault before Bigger accidentally killed Mary. I believe that there is great importance in how we characterize these crimes because there is a larger emphasis on language in the novel. In the trial, Bigger’s lawyer, Attorney Max, tries to plead guilty in hopes of reducing the sentence of capital punishment to life in prison. Bigger expresses his fears of dying in an emotional dive into his thoughts. In pleading guilty, Max argues that the crimes Bigger committed were insane which the plaintiff tries to debate with fear that Max was trying to characterize Bigger as a mentally unfit man, therefore allowing the defendant to be admitted into a psychiatric institution. Max’s poor choice of words brought the whole trial into a spiral, but he was only attempting to plead guilty and not classify Bigger as “insane.” In this case, words truly matter and they continue to have a strong attachment to this novel. I do want to clarify that Bigger did the unthinkable, especially when considering the horrors against Bessie and for that, he must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (although I am very much against the death penalty, I still think Bigger should be sentenced to life in prison for his actions). It is obvious the trial was strictly directed at the killing of Mary and not Bessie, this novel tries to show how the Black life was devastatingly undervalued and expresses the bias in the justice system. Biases we are still confronting today.

As you might remember, a senior member of the English Department visited the classroom earlier this semester to evaluate my teaching. Ironically, considering the conversation we had on Monday, that evaluation went well. And as I mentioned previously, the same model that I have used this semester has worked extremely well previously for this course (both at ND and the previous institution that I taught at). And yet, there’s a way that what works for some, might not work for others. And so I am committed to making adjustments. I also revealed a vulnerability with the class that may or may not be useful to our professor/student relationship. We shall see. 

In thinking about how we might approach the rest of our time in the classroom, I went to the statements that I have written about teaching in general. I am not sure how much you know about the work that your professors do, but we are regularly evaluated and consistently asked to write statements on our teaching, research, and service. This process is especially significant to junior faculty, such as myself, as these statements are one of the ways in which we are evaluated by senior members of the academy. For people of color, especially for women of color, there are often gaps between how they are viewed by their collogues and how they are viewed by their students. And yet, looking at my teaching statements, I am also realizing that there can also be a gap between what I set out to accomplish in the classroom, and the success of that initial goal. 

In my classes, I lean on the discursive; that is to say that I attempt to elicit responses from students with open ended questions so that the conversation will flow freely. The emphasis on classroom discourse as a key component of how I lead students towards understanding the material we are engaging has historically developed into productive discussions on difficult topics.  At times we have experienced the highs of this teaching method, while at other times it has been a challenge to keep the conversation going. I also think it is important to link the discursive to the experiential; meaning that in the conversations that we do have I work to connect the written to the lived. I am sucker for my kid (as you all know by now) and I often use our dynamic or experiences that I have had with her or even personal experiences that I have had to make what we are learning more real. That is to say, the experiences Baldwin writes about nearly sixty years ago are still relevant in my life in 2021. Yet all of this—my goals, desires, plans—do not matter if the students are not learning (or if they do not feel as if they are not learning). 

While your ultimate goal as a student might be getting good grades, as a professor, I actually wish grades did not exist. Instead of doing well and getting As, my focus is always on student growth. Asking questions outweighs having answers. Exceling from my perspective is knowing more about the subject on day 30 then you did on day one. Showing up is half the battle, full participation is the other. And yet I have to admit there has been a shift in the classroom post-2020. I am not sure if the shift has more to do with George Floyd and the confrontation of race relations in America, or if it has more to do with post pandemic trauma (or perhaps both?). But in many ways the classroom seems to be a more combative (right word?? Hostile?) space rather than a space of full experimentation. 

I called my mom after our class Monday (yes, I still talk to my mother regularly) and she mentioned something quite helpful. She asked me if I had called or talked to any of my Jewish friends about what’s happening in Israel right now. I gave her a resounding NOPE. She said, to think about the students from that perspective. You love your friends, and yet you are unwilling to engage in a conversation with them that might not have the best outcome. She said, that the students might feel similarly to discussing race in a racially diverse classroom. Mommies rule =)

In Baldwin’s “A Letter to My Nephew,” he writes that 

You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released.

These are the days that the goal of loving in the face of racism seems so difficult. It is what Baldwin wants each of us to learn from, and yet I wonder how do we love unconditionally when we feel vulnerable and threatened? 

Personally, I feel as if the Trump presidency created our current inflammatory political climate and that he has actively participated and encouraged the increase of anti-semitism and anti-Black racism. How do I love him? How do I even respect him as a former statesman? 

Black people are being killed by police officers without the opportunity of due process under the law. How do I love their murderers? How do Black lives matter in the face of unconditional love?

In relation to this class more specifically, we read Baldwin to understand that love is an active political position in times of crisis. Baldwin suggests that each of us love as a way to not only to heal race relations but to solve them. 

I keep hoping for that solution. And yet each year, it becomes more difficult. But I stay the course. I read. I teach Baldwin. I teach race in America. 

—–

In the teens of the twenty-first century both James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr have been resurrected. Proponents of love, both men are actively being reread and researched again. King has been revived in popular media productions such as “Return of the King” and From the Mountaintop. And as each of you know, th 2016 documentary on Baldwin, I am Not your Negro, has renewed interest in Baldwin. At a time of increased violence and visible racism it is not surprising that the lives and work of both men are actively being parsed, debated, and studied. They preached love; King from the pulpit and Baldwin from the page. 

As for me, I don’t know about the philosophy of love. But I am trying. I am trying.