A Reflection: I Am Not Your Negro
I was first introduced to James Baldwin when I was twenty-four. I had only recently moved to the D.C. area, where I spent most of my days sitting in a Starbucks in the Northwest quadrant applying for jobs and searching for escape in the speeches and interviews of Malcolm X on YouTube. There were but a few more that remained that I had avoided. While the caption read Malcolm X, the thumbnail was a picture of an individual completely foreign — and therefore irrelevant — to me. But as my need for Malcolm’s still-relevant message persisted (and I had nothing else to do) I agreed to hear what this gentleman had to offer. Over the course of the video, this stranger who so coolly — nevertheless conspicuously — conversed with Malcolm about the “Negro problem,” enamored me. Never had I witnessed such eloquence from the mouth and mind of one whose skin resembled mine. I had to know who he was. I later discovered his writings, which enlightened me all the more and gave articulation to that inexplicable part of my consciousness. He had written those words for me, yet not with me in mind whatsoever. And as I came to understand his close relationship with leaders like Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., all of whom he would attempt to capture in a novel that would ultimately go unfinished, I wondered why his oeuvre had been hidden from me — why my history books neglected to mention him.
Nearly four years later, Raoul Peck’s documentary I Am Not Your Negro, a reconstruction of the narrative of Baldwin’s unfinished novel, Remember This House, is for me, much appreciated and quite timely considering the current era in which we find ourselves as a country. What Baldwin could not complete in his time with us, Peck attempts to actualize with great humility as an admirer of the late writer. Using only the thirty pages of notes he left behind, Peck has constructed a film unobstructed by anyone else’s words than Baldwin’s, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, who foregoes his usually robust tone for a subtler, more intimate one. Peck successfully weaves these otherwise fragmented notes together in a coherent tapestry, accented with segments from interviews and speeches as well as various clips from movies that had given Baldwin insight into the mind of his countrymen, specifically what they thought of themselves, which said even more of what they feared.
Upon first entering the theater I was curious as to whom would be in attendance. I had had a feeling not every seat would be filled, though they should have been. However, I knew whoever was there needed to hear what Baldwin had to offer them. The audience, though sparse, was comprised of both white and black people almost evenly. I wouldn’t have particularly noticed the older white gentleman sitting beside me — despite it being a fairly open theater — had he not offered me some of his popcorn. Though I politely declined, I couldn’t help but wonder just what made him offer it to me, a perfect stranger. Moreover, I was clueless as to what compelled him, and everyone else for that matter, to see this film.
Having exhausted clips of Baldwin on YouTube over the past four years, I was able to, when not mesmerized by the message, listen to the audience, which groaned with discomfort at Baldwin’s more poignant points, just as I had when I was first confronted by them.
As Peck brilliantly presents in the film, Baldwin never hesitated to closely examine every aspect of American life. Ever the prophetic maverick, he held the mirror up to America, leaving no stone unturned and no life unveiled. He didn’t wholly agree with several of the prominent civil rights groups of the 1960’s and therefore couldn’t consider himself a member of any. But unlike his friends, he distinguished himself not as an actor but rather as a witness.
This was sometimes hard on my morale, but I had to accept, as time wore on, that part of my responsibility — as a witness — was to move as largely and as freely as possible, to write the story, and to get it out. — James Baldwin
Having garnered a considerable amount of fame with the success of his first novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and his first book of essays, Notes of a Native Son, Baldwin understood the power of his influence though he was skeptical of this dubious reception, later writing (sarcastically) that he was “the Great Black Hope of the Great White Father.” As intransigent as he was in his duty as an artist, he understood that people are rarely receptive to the truth about themselves. Our society can be transformed if only we considered those not like ourselves precisely because we could be them; we could have their struggles and in some ways they are ours too. In fact, how we perceive others often says more about us than those we regard with contempt. His indictments were harsh but fair and ultimately for the good of us all.
At the end of the film, as Kendrick Lamar’s Blacker the Berry proudly blares over the credits, the gentleman beside me turned and asks, “What did you think?” My thoughts were everywhere. But in that moment I went with a boring, albeit sincere, response: “I really liked it.” I then turned the question on him as more than a mere cordiality; I was genuinely curious. “Shame,” he told me, as he shook his head. I inquired further, asking him why. He said, “Because of the things my ancestors have done.” I didn’t say anything after that because I didn’t know what to do with his answer. I certainly knew I felt no pity, not because I couldn’t understand but because pity was utterly useless here. Shame was appropriate. It meant he felt discomfited. The question now is: what will he do with that shame? To be discomfited is to be awakened to the reality to which one has been blind; it is to feel the shock of the piercing sunlight upon emerging from the cave of Plato’s allegory. It transcends any “racial” issues and recognizes that they are, in fact, very much human problems.
It is not a racial problem. It is a problem of whether or not you’re wiling to look at your life and be responsible for it, and then begin to change it. — James Baldwin
What was curious about the gentleman’s statement was that it was void of any personal responsibility, as though he had never contributed to the perpetuation of our collective condition. And that’s not an uncommon position to take. The terrors that bred the Civil Rights Movement seem so safely entombed in the past, lying dormant until the worst of times reveals what was never properly faced. Raoul Peck has given us that chance with I Am Not Your Negro to see what we ought to see before it’s too late.
The truth is I didn’t hear of James Baldwin because like the gentleman in the theater I was made to feel uncomfortable; I was forced to change my perspective, to consider others in ways I otherwise would not without the proper insight; because I would dare to make this country great, not again but for the first time. We still stand to learn a great deal from one another.
