James Baldwin Racism

James Baldwin Racism
Log in or register to post comments
To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
James Baldwin, essayist, novelist, playwright, and searing social critic, has been enjoying a resurgence of interest recently due, at least in part, to the Baldwin documentary, I Am Not Your Negro (USA, 2017). There is no doubt that Baldwin’s thinking is just as relevant today, in the age of Black Lives Matters, as it was in the mid twentieth century. Sadly, there is so much that has not yet changed. And Baldwin has an uncanny ability to diagnose precisely what it is that ails America and the American people.
His prescription to ameliorate “the Negro problem,” however, I find puzzling. Take, for example, “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation,” (1963) where he says:
There is no reason for you to try to become like white men and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them, and I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love, for these innocent people have no other hope.
Why must black people accept their oppressors “with love”? And how can he call racist Americans who uphold systems of white supremacy “innocent”?
Of course, Baldwin is not alone in preaching love and tolerance during the Civil Rights era. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that,” and, “I have decided to stick to love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” But King was a deeply Christian man, a theologian, a preacher, so you’d expect this kind of message from him. While Baldwin was raised as a Christian, he rejected religion as an adult, so this overly conciliatory tone is more surprising coming from him.
It’s not just the prescription to his nephew that he ought to "love" and "accept" white people, but the further statement that they are “innocent” that really stands out. Obviously, Baldwin is not blind to the reality of white oppression, so why does he say that white people are innocent? Does he think of them as little children who don’t fully understand the horrors they inflict on black people?
“Innocence,” as Baldwin means it, is an interesting concept. He thinks of it as a kind of prison. He says that whites are “trapped in history,” by which he means that they’ve created this illusion of white supremacy. They think of themselves as superior, as separate from “the negro.” And segregation was instituted to maintain that illusion.
So, why call this “innocence”? Aren’t whites willfully self-deluded? White Americans benefit from white supremacy, so it pays to not be aware, it pays to be ignorant of the long history of oppression, discrimination, and marginalization that blacks have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of whites in this country. That way we whites can fool ourselves into thinking that we are entitled to any benefits that come our way, in virtue of our “hard work” or “personal responsibility.”
It’s difficult to see how white Americans who are not actively trying to dismantle racist systems of oppression deserve any kind of love and acceptance from black Americans. A more appropriate response, it seems to me, would be anger—righteous anger! Granted, Baldwin doesn’t see love as some empty sentiment that simply lets people off the hook. On the contrary, he sees love as a transformative project, which is why he says in the letter to his nephew, “We cannot be free until they are free.” Whites must be freed from the “traps” of history, from their self-delusions of supremacy, from their self-debasing need for “the negro,” before blacks will be truly free. And this tough love is what will free whites.
When Baldwin says, “I am not your negro,” what he means is that he refuses to be the negro that the white supremacist imagines, the negro incapable of love and dignity. And with that act of defiance he throws the burden of transformation back on the white man. It is we who must have a change of heart, it is we who must look inwards to understand the source of our need to dehumanize others, it is we who must become better, who must become honest with ourselves. We must recognize that these racist institutions that uphold white supremacy actually say more about us than they do about black people.
I Am Not Your Negro seems to be aimed more at white Americans than black. Baldwin asks us to consider the fundamental question: why is it that we needed to invent “the nigger”? This is an act of love on Baldwin’s part. He is helping us to understand and come to terms with the history of racism and white supremacy in this country, and what it says about us. For that, we should be grateful. But at the same time, I can’t help from having a niggling feeling that Baldwin is letting whites off the hook a bit too easily. Why does the burden always fall to black Americans to educate white Americans about their own history?
Sociologist, historian, philosopher, editor, writer, and activist, W.E.B. DuBois was one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century.
From the abolition of slavery to the Black Power movement, African-American unity has been considered a powerful method to achieve freedom and equality.
Whether for counterterrorism measures, street level crime, or immigration, racial profiling of minorities occurs frequently.
“White privilege” has become a buzzword in discussions about racial inequality and racial justice.
The United States brutally enslaved African Americans for its first hundred or so years of existence.
Started in the wake of George Zimmerman's 2013 acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has become a po...
Sometimes, we struggle to tell the truth -- especially when it's the truth about ourselves. Why did James Baldwin, a prominent Civil Ri...
Frantz Fanon is a thinker who has inspired radical liberation movements in places ranging from Palestine to South Africa to the United States.
Thursday, February 15, 2018 -- 1:26 PM
Several years ago, I quoted a friend's remark to me about the human device known as APOLOGY. (Bob died this year at the age of 72) When he was growing up, his father allegedly advised him: "Never apologize! It's a sign of weakness!" This goes to the heart of much of what has gone on with regard to many aspects of the American Dream, over two hundred years or so. That it is part of our history of race incrimination isn't news either. When people apologize to one another, there is tacit agreement to treat each other better or at least an INTENT to do so. When no such obligation is formed and people choose to remain adversarial, there can be no constructive dialog; no constructive change; and, moreover, no motivation to improve the situation. Many of us who grew up in bigoted families have either struggled with that, or have refused to make any change at all, education, social change or political correctness, notwithstanding. I don't know if my friend Bob ever changed his views. He was Army Special Operations for much of his career life. That says whatever it says. Passive non-violence has been around since, at latest, Gandhi. Baldwin? I don't really know what he thought. I doubt if anyone does. We believe what we want to believe, good, bad, or ugly...
Sociologist, historian, philosopher, editor, writer, and activist, W.E.B. DuBois was one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century.
From the abolition of slavery to the Black Power movement, African-American unity has been considered a powerful method to achieve freedom and equality.
Whether for counterterrorism measures, street level crime, or immigration, racial profiling of minorities occurs frequently.
“White privilege” has become a buzzword in discussions about racial inequality and racial justice.
The United States brutally enslaved African Americans for its first hundred or so years of existence.
Started in the wake of George Zimmerman's 2013 acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has become a po...
Sometimes, we struggle to tell the truth -- especially when it's the truth about ourselves. Why did James Baldwin, a prominent Civil Ri...
Frantz Fanon is a thinker who has inspired radical liberation movements in places ranging from Palestine to South Africa to the United States.
Subscribe to receive new ideas, inspiration, news, and event information each month!
Philosophy Talk relies on the support of listeners like you to stay on the air and online. Any contribution, large or small, helps us produce intelligent, reflective radio that questions everything, including our most deeply-held beliefs about science, morality, culture, and the human condition.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation .
Philosophy Talk is produced by KALW on behalf of Stanford University.
© 2020 by Philosophy Talk and PhilosophyTalk.org. All Rights Reserved.

James Baldwin, Hyde Park, London, 1969

Facilitated by: Paul Flippin |

in: Dharma Topics

Silver Spring, Maryland, Community Online on Thursday Evening
July 30, 7:00 to 8:45 pm
Open to all Online on Friday Evening
July 31, 7:00 to 8:45 pm
When Mitchell asked me to facilitate this week, the topic that immediately came to me was the racism that confronts us all, and causes a great deal of suffering here in America and around the world. The extrajudicial killing (lynching) of George Floyd’s that fateful Memorial Day is but one instance of countless brutal acts that began in 1619 when Africans were brought to this country against their will.
In our conversation, one of the first things Mitchell said was that recently he had been reading a lot of James Baldwin. I, too, have read and studied Mr. Baldwin over the years. He was a prolific African American novelist, playwright, essayist, and social critic. He was a prominent and sometimes maligned figure throughout the civil rights era of the 60s and 70s. His unflinching, gloves off, sometimes withering observations and critiques of America are the stuff of legend.
This Thursday and Friday evenings we will read some excerpts of Baldwin’s prescient writings and watch clips from one of my favorite documentaries on him, I Am Not Your Negro . In our discussion will examine contexts and identify parallels to our current situation. In particular, we will explore how the dual effects of racism — on the perpetrator and the perpetrated upon— have scarred us. In what ways can our mindfulness practice help us understand and transform our collective and ancestral suffering?
Personally, the practice has helped me deal with some aspects of being Black in America. For example, many African Americans are nonplussed and get downright angry at the experience of being followed/shadowed/racially profiled in department stores by store security personnel as if they are going to steal something. In my estimation, born from meditation, the profiling is the department store’s problem and a total waste of their resources and time and of my mental health. While they are watching me out of some pre-conceived notion of who I am as a Black man, some white person may very well be stealing them blind. A quote from Mr. Baldwin at the end of the documentary masterfully expresses this perspective:
I’m forced to believe that we can survive whatever we must survive. But the Negro in this country…the future of the Negro in this country is precisely as bright or as dark as the future of the country. It is entirely up to the American people and our representatives—it is entirely up to the American people whether or not they are going to face and deal with and embrace this stranger who they have maligned so long. What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a “nigger” in the first place, because I’m not a nigger, I’m a man. But if you think I’m a nigger, it means you need him. The question that you’ve got to ask yourself, the white population of this country has got to ask itself, North and South because it’s one country and for a Negro there is no difference between the North and the South—it’s just a difference in the way they castrate you, but the fact of the castration is the American fact….If I’m not the nigger here and you invented him, you the white people invented him, then you’ve got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that, whether or not it is able to ask that question.
I believe the antiracist mindfulness practices we aspire to are present in The Gatha for Healing Racial, Systemic, and Social Inequality written by the ARISE (Awakening through Race, Intersectionality, and Social Equity) Sangha :
Aware of the suffering caused by racial, systemic, and social inequities, we commit ourselves, individually and as a community, to understanding the roots of these inequities, and to transforming this suffering into compassion, understanding and love in action. As a global community of practitioners, we are aware of the disproportionate racial violence and oppression committed by institutions and by individuals, whether consciously or unconsciously, against African Americans, Indigenous peoples and people of color across the United States and beyond. We know that by looking deeply as individuals and as a community, we can engage the collective wisdom and energy of the Sangha to be our foundation for Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Mindfulness, and Right Insight. These are the practices leading to nondiscrimination, non-harming, and non-self which heal ourselves and the world. We invite you to join us this Thursday and Friday evenings. Together we will learn from James Baldwin and participate in a Dharma sharing about racism and mindfulness practice. Our Dharma sharing will begin with our reflections on these questions:
We invite you to join us this Thursday and Friday evenings. Together we will learn from James Baldwin and participate in a Dharma sharing about racism and mindfulness practice. Our Dharma sharing will begin with our reflections on these questions:
More excerpts from James Baldwin and an excerpt by Alan Senauke are below.
from I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin
– The Dick Cavett Show – 1968
Dick Cavett: Mr. Baldwin, I’m sure you still meet the remark: “What are the Negroes…why aren’t they optimistic?” But they say it’s getting so much better. There are Negro mayors. There are Negroes in all of sports. There are Negroes in politics. They are even accorded the ultimate accolade of being in television commercials now. I’m glad you’re smiling. Is it at once getting much better and still hopeless?
James Baldwin: Well, I don’t think there’s much hope for it, you know, to tell you the truth as long as people are using this peculiar language. It’s not a question of what happens to the Negro here or to the black man here— that’s a very vivid question for me, you know—but the real question is what is going to happen to this country. I have to repeat that.
– Lorraine Hansberry Meeting With Robert Kennedy Jr. – 1963
I must sketch now the famous Bobby Kennedy meeting. Lorraine Hansberry would not be very much younger than I am now if she were alive. At the time of the Bobby Kennedy meeting, she was thirty-three. That was one of the very last times I saw her on her feet, and she died at the age of thirty-four. I miss her so much.
We wanted him to tell his brother the President to personally escort to school, on that day or the day after, a small black girl already scheduled to enter a Deep South school. “That way,” we said, “it will be clear that whoever spits on that child will be spitting on the nation.” He didn’t understand this either. “It would be,” he said, “a meaningless moral gesture.” “We would like,” said Lorraine, “from you, a moral commitment.” He looked insulted—seemed to feel that he had been wasting his time. Well Lorraine sat still, watching all the while …She looked at Bobby Kennedy, who, perhaps for the first time, looked at her. “But I am very worried,” she said, “about the state of the civilization which produced that photograph of the white cop standing on that Negro woman’s neck in Birmingham.”
And I am glad that she was not smiling at me. “Goodbye, Mr. Attorney General,” she said, and turned and walked out oI the room.
– James Baldwin And William F. Buckley, Jr., Cambridge University Debate – 1965
James Baldwin: Leaving aside all the physical facts which one can quote, leaving aside rape or murder, leaving aside the bloody catalogue of oppression, which we are in one way too familiar with already, what this does to the subjugated—is to destroy his sense of reality.
This means in the case of the American Negro, born in that glittering republic…and in the moment you are born, since you don’t know any better, every stick and stone and every face is white, and since you have not yet seen a mirror, you suppose that you are, too. It comes as a great shock around the age of five, or six, or seven to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you.
It comes as a great shock to discover the country which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity has not in its whole system of reality evolved any place for you.
From “On Race and Buddhism” by Alan Senauke
(In The Bodhisattva’s Embrace: Dispatches from Engaged Buddhism’s Front Lines )
…by habit we often see a world thoroughly conditioned by duality. Driven by doubt and fear, by a lack of trust in our true Mind, we see things as self and objects, as us and them, as other. It seems so hard to recognize the truth that Tibetan Buddhists preach: that every being was at one time my own mother. The root of racism is denial of this truth. It is about seeing people as other in a systematic way that is such an entrenched habit we are not usually aware of. I would underscore the word systematic, because as ideas like a virus in society they have a power that goes beyond individual like and dislike. Racism is a system of domination that is economic and political as well as personal. It runs deep in the oppressor and the oppressed alike, though the damage caused is different.
Topics are posted on Tuesdays for discussion during our Thursday and Friday evening online programs at 7 pm.. See calendar for meeting time and location. All are welcome.
Still Water MPC
P.O. Box 11360
Takoma Park, MD 20913
Annapolis, MD
Ashton, MD
Columbia, MD
Gaithersburg, MD
Sandy Spring, MD
Silver Spring, MD
Stevensville, MD
Takoma Park, MD
© 2022 Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center | Design by HH Graphics

We're hoping to rely on loyal readers, rather than erratic ads. Please click the Donate button and support Open Culture. You can use Paypal, Venmo, Patreon, even Crypto! We thank you!

Get the best cultural and educational resources delivered to your inbox

Audio Books

Online Courses

MOOCs

Movies

Languages

Textbooks

eBooks

Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.

Open Culture (openculture.com) and our trusted partners use technology such as cookies on our website to personalise ads, support social media features, and analyze our traffic. Please click below to consent to the use of this technology while browsing our site.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies tha
Blowjop
Natalia Villaveces Desnuda
Roxxyx Porn

James Baldwin Racism

Report Page