Teaching Inside: Baldwin, Blackness, and Boo Boo

I would like to think that some of the literary greats are looking down on my Af-Am Lit class, proud of the work being done. In particular, I would like to believe — and maybe I do believe a little bit — that James Baldwin, King of all Words, would, at the very least, have enjoyed listening to tonight’s class. The guys read The Fire Next Time, which is one of my absolute favorite Baldwin pieces. The nuggets he dropped are so damn relevant — then and now — and every time I read it, it’s like I’m picking it up brand new and reading it for the first time. I’ve got sections that are highlighted, highlighted and underlined, highlighted and underlined twice, and highlighted and underlined twice with an asterisk in the margin for ideas that are REALLY important. And then sometimes I’ll add a scribble in the margin. And everything can be different colors. I mean, ultimately, the book ends up looking like this:

But enough about me and my book addiction. The guys read the book for tonight’s class and once we got past the obligatory “Baldwin is wordy,” feedback, we were able to get to the meat of this piece. We went around the table to voice immediate reactions/opinions and reactions ranged from “Dude is official,” and “Thank you for introducing this to us, Doc,” but there were three comments, specifically, that stuck out. Two of them occurred during the initial feedback period and the last one occurred at the very end of class, and exemplified both how one student was relating his own racial epiphany and how I lose control at the same time in every class LOL!

The first comment came from one of my older students who lived through the times about which Baldwin often wrote. He is typically very talkative and is never without a witty comeback or clever one liner. But this time he paused, intentionally I’m sure, and said, “Dude just laid it all out about black folk during that time. We’re the ones that people love to hate.” And while it was a tad bit cliche, it struck me on today. I think it was because this discussion was taking place in a correctional facility and the layers of that second statement communicated so much. In our society, incarcerated people are also a group of folks that we “love to hate” because, as Baldwin notes, “People…love the idea of being superior. And this human truth has an especially grinding force here, where identity is almost impossible to achieve and people are perpetually attempting to find their feet on the shifting sands of status,” (p. 88). In addition to the ways in which this quotation applies to black folks in America, it also applies to incarcerated people whose individuality and identity are systematically stripped in the name of conformity and control. And I don’t know if this student even meant it that way; he very well could have. He’s smart as hell. But I know that I was moved, simply by recognizing that duality in the moment. And the intersection of being an incarcerated black man? Maaaaaaaaaaaaan, too much to even talk about right now.
So, that was the first comment that warmed my heart.

The second comment came from another one of my older students. He also grew up during the Baldwin era and he was also brought up in the Nation of Islam. At first blush this doesn’t seem like anything that could cause any sort of cognitive dissonance; Baldwin had dinner with Elijah Muhammad and was sometimes featured on panels/in discussions with Malcolm X. And while they disagreed on certain points, Baldwin appreciated and respected what the NOI did for black folks searching for a God to whom they could relate. For this student, however, there was a stark problem. He began his comment, saying that he initially did not want to read the book.

I was like wha????? Who DOESN’T want to always read Baldwin everyday? LOL but I kept my shock to myself and asked why he didn’t want to read the book. He said, “Well, some of the guys in the dorm had read some of him earlier and, uh, they uh, they told me, uh, about the author.” And, at this point, I realized exactly what was going on and had a split second to try and respond.
I said, “Told you he was gay?” He said, “Yeah, that. So, you know, I admit that. I didn’t want to read the book because he was gay. But then [another student in his dorm] talked to me and said I needed to put that aside and just read it. So I did. And it changed my life.”
Ya’ll. OK. So, as you probably have noted, I’m a pretty far left leaning liberal who supports marriage equality, tries to stay up on all the gender descriptors, and understands how someone’s sexuality can certainly impact and/or influence their art. But I also know where I teach; correctional facilities are not known for the collaborative ways in which they work toward inclusion. So, given these things, you will understand me when I say my heart was so damn full when the student said that. When he finished, I had to chime in and 1) acknowledge my appreciation for his desire to learn allowing him to look past a preconception he had about a person based upon their sexuality and 2) for being honest and vulnerable in a space where, you know, he could have thought I would have read him for filth or something. I wanted him to know that I recognized the risk he took in that moment with his honesty and I was glad that he was able to reap the reward of pushing through and past his prejudices to read one of the greatest writers to ever grace a pen and paper.
I’m still kind of emotional about it, so, whatever :)
So much of what I do — or think I do — is about helping guys understand the perspectives they bring to literature and the ways in which our perceptions, prejudices, biases, and lived experiences can color the lens with which we read. Tonight I felt like this student had a breakthrough and, for real ya’ll, like, it was so momentous.

The third comment, and the lighter of the three, involved ANOTHER of my older students who, like the others, grew up in the Baldwin era. He spoke passionately about how, growing up, he did not initially see race — and growing up in that era, not seeing race was a luxury that a young, black boy could not so much afford. Eventually race became a “thing” to be aware of but, as we all know, RACISM is far different than recognizing racial difference. But, racial climate notwithstanding, he said his best friend was a white boy in the neighborhood. He said that he was at his friend’s house one day and his friend used the toilet, did a #2, and apparently forgot to flush.
Whoops! LOL
So when the student went into the bathroom a little later, for his own afternoon porcelain constitution, he noticed the gift left behind. He said that he had thought that his own poo (the student, that is) was brown because HE was brown. He had assumed, at the tender age of 7–8, that white boys pooped white. When he saw that a white boy left a brown poo, his world changed! It was at that moment, he said, that he truly understood that we really are all the same underneath. Because we poo the same LOL. Now, granted, this is a simplistic view of the universality of humanity, but I think it is equally telling about how we talk to our kids about race and the ways in which they ultimately figure things out on their own, in addition to watching and observing what adults do and how they live. The entire class enjoyed this lighthearted story, especially considering the somber mood that can accompany any thorough discussion of Baldwin’s work.
This class reminded me of why it is so important to provide educational opportunities inside correctional facilities that match the intellectual capacity and desires of the students. One of the guys admitted, early in the class, that Baldwin had been a difficult read for him; Baldwin employs an enormous vocabulary in addition to ALL THE COMMAS, so he ended up reading multiple passages multiple times, still getting confused and mixed up in certain places. But his commitment to himself and his own learning forced him to speak up and admit, again against this backdrop that does not encourage any admission of weakness, “Doc, slow down. I need you to go back and clear something up for me, because I don’t understand.”
Like, that’s all I want. I want my students to understand that while their current residential circumstance says they are inmates/prisoners first, in my classroom they are HUMANS first and STUDENTS second; and as humans and students, they are, in that classroom space for those 90 minutes, completely in control of what and how they learn.
It’s all any of us can ask for, really, in this work.
