3 things I learned from James Baldwin.
I’m a lighter shade of brown straight male who grew up in the projects in South Central Phoenix. If you’d told me when I was a teenager that a queer black man would become my favorite purveyor of truth I’d probably consider the idea absurd. At that time I dreamt of joining a seminary and saving the souls of folks who didn’t need religion. The last thing I had on my mind was dealing with that kind of truth.
Fast forward more than a decade and here I am. Thanks to Baldwin I see the similarities between being dogmatic and getting hustled. I also know that our notion of equality is superficial at best. If our elected leaders supported equality we would never have implemented high stakes testing. Nor would we have the need to posture and say that we are the greatest nation on Earth.
On equality
"There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior."
We constantly hear folks say “when I win the lottery” and in this statement we see no critique of capitalism or race. In hopes of being superior our communities dream of winning the lottery or leaving the hood. Rarely do we stop and think that all we are doing is reinforcing the corrupt system we live. To many folks it means that some of us deserve have access to resources while others starve. Perhaps that is why we hear collective ownership derided as communist and use words like ghetto to describe communities starved of resources.
On failed revolutions
We should certainly know but now that it is one thing to overthrow a dictator or repel an invader and quite another thing to achieve a revolution.
Pundits speak about war and invasion as if it brought with it salvation. Yet rarely do they take credit for death or the consequences that follow. Instead they speak of the need for Democracy while our actions tell them that democracy is utterly violent and often undemocratic.
Only in a delusional country like our ours can we speak about gun violence while gun manufacturers rake in billions. There is talk of our president being a socialist and wanting total rule while few step up to openly challenge the way things are.Combine that with bribes/campaign contributions and pork barrel spending and we’re no less corrupt than the nations we invade. Democracy at least how we’ve practiced it in this nation has a long way to go. And yet we push the narrative of equality as something we’ve achieved instead of as a work in progress when at best our revolution has died of a diabetic shock brought about by conservative reform. Look no farther than our venerable Supreme Court to see how inconsistent our nation’s values are with reality.
On confidence
The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality-for this touchstone can only be oneself.
Growing up there’s been many moments where I’ve distrusted my instincts whether it was my first job or getting stopped by police feet from my apartment. Yet as I’ve grown in age and in experience I see that when I fall into doubt I allow myself to get anxious. The opposite is true when I remember that there have been plenty of moments where I moved forward trying to figure out the process. I need both moments of doubt and anxiety to grow. We are only on earth for a finite time we are changing but if we trust ourselves we can learn from our struggle.
If you liked this please share it or your thoughts about what you’ve learned from Baldwin.
