Universidade do Minho
Escola de Letras, Artes e Ciências Humanas
Simão Pedro Rodrigues Machado
The Biographical Novel:
The Search for Identity in James Baldwin's Novels
| 2022Simão Pedro Rodrigues MachadoThe Biographical Novel: The Search for Identity in James Baldwin's Novels
Simão Pedro Rodrigues Machado
The Biographical Novel:
The Search for Identity in James Baldwin's Novels
Dissertação de Mestrado
Mestrado em Língua, Literatura e Cultura Inglesas Área de especialização em Línguas e Literaturas Trabalho efetuado sob a orientação do(a)
Professor Doutor Jaime José Becerra Costa Universidade do Minho
Escola de Letras, Artes e Ciências Humanas
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AGRADECIMENTOS
Ao meu orientador, Professor Doutor Jaime Costa. Pela paciência, sapiência, por me despertar o gosto na cultura americana e por tudo que me ensinou. Estarei sempre grato.
Obrigado aos meus pais, e irmão. Família direta. Pelos sacrifícios, palavras bonitas e por serem sempre um ponto de abrigo. Espero ser para alguém, metade do que são comigo. Amo-vos.
Aos restantes familiares. Também no meu coração. Obrigado por tudo.
Aos meus amigos. Leais, pacientes, os melhores que podia ter.
“Love does not begin and end the way we think it does (…); love is a growing up”. (The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction:1948- 1985, p. 241)
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
STATEMENT OF INTEGRITY
I hereby declare having conducted this academic work with integrity. I confirm that I have not used plagiarism or any form of undue use of information or falsification of results along the process leading to its elaboration. I further declare that I have fully acknowledged the Code of Ethical Conduct of the University of Minho.
RESUMO
Título: The Biographical Novel: The Search for Identity in James Baldwin’s Novels
Num mundo onde os direitos civis e os movimentos LGBT estão a ter cada vez mais exposição, vem a cabeça um autor que os tornou prevalentes numa sociedade que ainda tinha dificuldades em aceitar que alguém com tom de pele e identidade sexual diferente pudesse ter os mesmos direitos que alguém da sociedade WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant).
James Baldwin inovou e tal maneira que os seus livros e visões sobre a sociedade ainda hoje são lidos e relevantes (respectivamente). Em ‘’Sonny’s Blues’’ vemos o quanto a morte de alguém importante muda e transforma uma pessoa, e como a mesma pode ser um elo de ligação entre duas pessoas. Em
“Go Tell it on the Mountain’’, uma pessoa pode ver como a sociedade influencia não apenas a vida de alguém, ao mudar a identidade deste desde o inicio; como a família pode por vezes ser o pior inimigo de alguém, ao recusar a identidade de uma pessoa devido a erros passados, e como um passado tumultuoso pode resultar numa crise de identidade; já em “Giovanni’s Room é possível ver a luta que um autor pode ter, luta essa encarnada em David, um homem em luta consigo mesmo, apenas por ser homossexual.
Por isso nesta tese, o meu objetivo é explorar os conceitos de cultura e identidade na bibliografia de James Baldwin, bem como na Literatura e Sociedade Afro-Americana. Em ‘’Go Tell it on the Mountain’’
exploro a questão racial numa sociedade WASP, e em ‘’Giovanni’s Room’’ exploro a questão sexual muitos anos antes da comunidade LGBT começar a ser prevalente na sociedade atual.
Palavras-Chave: Direitos Civis, Movimentos LGBT, Sociedade, Identidade
ABSTRACT
Title: The Biographical Novel: The Search for Identity in James Baldwin’s Novels
In a world where nowadays the civil rights and the LGBT movements are getting more and more exposure it comes to mind an author that made them more prevalent in a society that at the time still had issues in accepting that someone with a different skin color or a different sexual orientation could have the same rights as someone from the so-called WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) society.
James Baldwin was an innovator in such a way that his books and views from society are still relevant, read and discussed today. In ‘’Sonny’s Blues’’ we see how the death of someone close changes and transforms a person, and how that can form a connection between two people. In “Go Tell it on the Mountain’’ on mind, one can see how society influences not only the life someone one will live by shaping someone’s identity from the start, how family can sometimes be a person’s worst enemy by having someone refusing their identity because of some mistakes from the past and also how having a tormented past can also result in an identity crisis; whereas on “Giovanni’s Room” it is possible to observe a struggle that an author can have, and see those same struggles in the shape of the character David, a man that is constantly fighting with himself simply because he does not oblige to the heterosexual society.
So in this thesis, my objective is to explore the concepts of culture and identity in the biobibliography of James Baldwin, as well as in Afro American’s Literature and Society. In ‘’Go Tell it on the Mountain’’ I explore the racial question in a WASP society whereas in ‘’Giovanni’s Room’’ I explore the sexual question, several years before the LGBT community began to be prevalent in today’s modern society.
Key Words: Civil Rights, LGBT Movements, Society, Identity
INDEX
Agradecimentos (Acknowledgements)………...………...……….ii
Declaração de Integridade………...………...iii
Resumo...iv
Abstract...v
Index...vi
Chapter 1. James Baldwin and His Time………..………..…...1
Chapter 2. Themes in James Baldwin’s Literature……….…….……….16
Chapter 3. Culture and Identity in Afro American Literature and Society...25
Chapter 4. James Baldwin and Toni Morrison……….36
Chapter 5. Telling it on the Mountain ………...……….44
Chapter 6. Entering Giovanni’s Room..………...………..………….………..65
Chapter 7. Conclusions……….71
Bibliography………...………...74
Annex………..…..78
CHAPTER1: James Baldwin and His Time
Before we can start to analyze and study the biobibliography of James Baldwin (1924, Harlen, New York City, USA – 1987, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France) it is fundamental to know and have some background regarding his life and, most important than that, it is primordial to understand in what type of world he lived in.
Once we consider the fact that James Baldwin was born in the mid-1920’s and that he, himself was a person of colored skin, it is not hard to understand and to figure out that he did not have the best and the easiest of upbringings. In fact, we cannot forget that there is a long story of discrimination and mistreatment of colored people in the USA before Baldwin was born.
However, these problems were not only found in social affairs, even the tiniest fact of life could be used as an excuse to cause problems highlighting the discrepancy between white and black people.
Perhaps one of the most curious aspects that a person can observe was the fact that black people were refused to serve in the military, “African American were barred altogether from the marines and permitted to serve in the navy only in the most menial capacities’’ (Franklin, 1994 p.328) Considering the fact that the Spanish-American War had taken place in 1898 and that the First World War had started in 1914, this just serves to show that in less than 20 years a lot of things had happened for the black people regarding the wars and their participation in them.
Some other aspect as relevant and that needs to be mentioned is the different criticisms regarding hypocrisy addressed at President of the United States of America Woodrow Wilson, in office around James Baldwin’s birth). Wilson endured criticism, particularly during World War I;
Wilson, 1917 pp. 408-410: “Is it based upon the faith of all the peoples involved, or merely upon the word of an ambitious and intriguing government, on the one hand, and of a group of free peoples, on the other? This is a test which goes to the root of the matter; and it is the test which must be applied. ... An enduring peace ... must be based upon justice and fairness and the common rights of mankind” and while the last statement is common sense, because as it is known, in order to achieve peace, a sense of justice and fairness is needed, it should also be noted and mentioned that in Wilson’s own country several grave miscarriages of justice had taken place because of the duality of criteria regarding different races. In other words, Woodrow
Wilson was highly critical (and rightfully so) of war crimes, but at the same time he did not care or did not show willingness in order to stop the racial crimes that were happening on the USA during the same period.
Much like dynamite ready to explode, it is not coincidental that due to this hypocrisy, waves of racial hate crimes would occur, and it was exactly what happened in 1917 when several riots started to hit the USA like a storm, most notably the Houston Race Riots which started on August of that year (Schuler, 1944). Riots and violence, instead of having a tranquilizing effect as a valve to blow off pressure, had the opposite effect, as racial issues were only made worse for public opinion, for both black and white. Thus, two years later, in 1919, what would become to be known as the “Red Summer” blasted with eleven riots in mere 6 months and all of them with the same purpose, to scare and suppress black people (McWhirter, 2011).
It was in this environment that James Baldwin was born in 1924 in the Harlem Neighborhood, New York City. Son of an absent and drug abuser father, Baldwin had to cope with a difficult childhood since the beginning. And, as if that was not enough, when Baldwin was a mere 10- year-old boy he faced the first case of racist abuse and discrimination when some members of the New York Police Department teased him because of his skin color. It soon became clear that the times were rough for the young Baldwin, who was even made fun of by his stepfather;
Leeming (1995, p.6) in Baldwin’s biography says: “An enduring and ever-present memory was of his stepfather making fun of his eyes and calling him the ugliest child he had ever seen”.
Baldwin’s stepfather, David Baldwin was at the time a preacher and, quoting Leeming, (1995, p.5): “He was the archetypal black father, one generation removed from slavery, prevented by the ever-present shadow and the frequently present effects of racial discrimination from providing his family with what they needed most— their birthright, their identity as individuals rather than as members of a class or a race”. By all the accounts, he was not a caring father, according to Baldwin: “He used to make little jokes about our poverty, which never, of course, seemed very funny to us; they could not have seemed very funny to him, either, or else our all too feeble response to them would never have caused such rages. He spent great energy and achieved, to our chagrin, no small amount of success in keeping us away from the people who surrounded us, people who had all-night rent parties to which we listened when we should have been sleeping, people who cursed and flashed razor blades on Lenox Avenue” (Baldwin, p. 66).
Another source is an interview of Baldwin to Nancy Lynch, transcribed in the book
“Conversations with James Baldwin’’: “I’ve hated a few people, but I’ve hated only one person, and that was my father (…) He didn’t like me. But he’d had a terrible time, too. And of course, I was not his son. I was a bastard” (Pratt, 1989 p.78). It should be noted however, that Lenox Avenue in itself was not a bad place, especially, if we consider that the renowned Harlem Renaissance had its origins there (Harlem World Magazine, 2022). The fact that Baldwin and his brothers were, according to Baldwin himself, up until late and often saw people sharing blades and cursing denoted that in his opinion, the environment his father provided to his children was not good enough, careless, and hence Baldwin wanted to escape from his father and stay away from him as much as he could.
Baldwin’s father is described as old fashioned and with bitterness and resentment inside of him, and, most importantly, did not seem to care for James Baldwin education and interests. In Notes of a Native Son, Baldwin mentions that when he was “nine or ten” he wrote a play, and as a reward, his teacher decided to offer him some books, and most importantly, she decided to take him on to see a real play. While most fathers would be happy and proud of their sons because of those achievements, James’ father simply forbade him, as “Theater-going was forbidden in our house” (Baldwin, 1998 p.67). At the time Baldwin, in his childish innocence, thought that theater was forbidden due to their color skin (Pratt, 1978). Eventually his father would let him go see the play with the teacher, but it should be noted that he did that against his will, and James quickly realized that if it had been up to his father, he would have refused right away, and that caused him to hate his father even more (Pratt, 1978). His relationship with his father would not change in later years because quoting James “he became more explicit and warned me that my white friends in high school were not really my friends and that I would see, when I was older, how white people would do anything to keep a Negro down. Some of them could be nice, he admitted, but none of them were to be trusted and most of them were not even nice” (Baldwin, 1998 p.
68). It could be because of the treatment that his forefathers had received (James’s father was son of a slave), but it soon would become clear for Baldwin that his father clearly and simply despised him, and that would cause his life to turn the way it turned.
Because of that sort of upbringing, young James soon began to go to libraries to find a way out and be able to express himself. It had become clear that James Baldwin had a gift for writing, and that came into fruition when he wrote his first article called “Harlem – Then and Now” at the
mere age of thirteen. It was during high school that James Baldwin would find one of his major inspirations, the professor and poet Countee Cullen, and in that same middle school he would develop even more his writing skills by becoming the editor of the school newspaper (Brooks, 1986).
Later, Baldwin would enroll himself onto Dewitt Clinton High School and his experience there would be bittersweet, to say the least. There he would be, once again part of the school newspaper which would work for him as to develop his writing skills, but at the same time, he was racially abused and therefore he would not feel happy in high school (Pratt, 1978).
A few years later, when James Baldwin celebrated his 19th birthday, his father died and, at that same time, the infamous Harlem Riots of 1943 took place. Those riots occurred due to a racial incident which saw Robert Bandy getting shot and rumors of his death soon would spread across the neighborhood. According to Baldwin “(…) the spoils of injustice, anarchy, discontent, and hatred were all around us. It seemed to me that God himself had devised, to mark my father’s end, the most sustained and brutally dissonant of codas. And it seemed to me, too, that the violence which rose all about us as my father left the world had been devised as a corrective for the pride of his eldest son.” (Baldwin,1998 p.63). It should be noted however that the Bandy’s shooting by itself was not a major factor in the riot, the major factor was in fact, the rumor that he was dead (Abu-Lughod, 2007). That would cause many arrests and specially a sense of injustice, racism, double standards by the security people and this incident would eventually not only have a major influence on Baldwin’s life but also on his writings.
From a personal standpoint, Baldwin soon would realize that religion would also have a major factor on racism and as Baldwin himself states on the documentary “Take this hammer” :
“…these churches are absolutely meaningless and almost blasphemous…more social club than spiritual institution…the Christian church in this country has never, as far as I know, been Christian.” (Moore, 1964). Baldwin would go so far as also accuse religion of playing a major role in racism because, according to him, religion would promise a best afterlife for everyone: “there is no love in church” and that the church “was a mask for hatred and self-hatred” (Baldwin, 1998, p. 309)
Baldwin soon would not feel welcomed in his own homeland as, once again, racism would hit him hard: “I hated white people because I was afraid of them, because they made me suffer; and as far as I could tell, tended to continue making me suffer, and people around me, because of our color (…) I can’t blame any black boy or girl for what they feel about white people,” (Pratt, 1989 p.46) these are Baldwin’s words in an interview with British reporter James Mossman in 1965 once again transcribed on ‘’Conversations With James Baldwin’’. These powerful words are enough to show the oppression and how mistreated black people were in what is called “land of the free”, the same country that brags of being the “land of the opportunities”. Judging by James Baldwin’s words the only people free and full of opportunities are the ones who show certain traits, and among those traits the color of skin is perhaps the most prevalent. The sentences quoted above were uttered twenty years after one of the deadliest wars had taken place, a war that revealed to the world concentration camps to kill people that did not correspond to the
“German ideal’’. The sentences were not uttered during the 18th or in the 19th century when a civil war broke in the United States because some states wanted to preserve slavery.
Like majority of Afro-Americans, Baldwin had services being refused to him, simple services like getting served at a restaurant, and that was the last straw for Baldwin who, at the same time, would also begin to find out who he was (Baldwin would began to realize that he was gay) and he would soon feel that he was a foreigner in his own homeland and that would eventually lead him to leave America and go to Paris (Pratt, 1978). It was there, that He would realize that unlike in America, his works were read for what he had to say and who he was and not read as if he was a
“negro” or a “negro American”.
It was in Paris that James Baldwin would soon find out that he was not like Richard Wright (prominent afro American writer, famous for the novel “Native Son”, 1940), his idol, as he had a completely different style to that of Wright’s (Pratt, 1978). Also in Paris, in 1946, Baldwin’s life took a completely different turn for the best, as he would begin to write in a more periodically and professional way specially after he had found help on Sol Levitas of The New Leader, Randall Jarrell of The Nation, Elliot Cohen and Robert Warshow of Commentary, and Philip Rahv of Partisan Review who were all extremely supportive and helpful to the young James (Pratt, 1978).
One year later James would have his first professional work published, a review of Maxim Gorki’s
“Best Short Stories”. In that review, Baldwin states that “he is far from a careful writer and by no
means a great one. He is almost always painfully verbose and frequently threatens to degenerate into simple propaganda.” (Baldwin, 1948).
James Baldwin felt out of place in a double way, as he was negro and homosexual: “I wanted to prevent myself from becoming merely a Negro; or, even, merely a Negro writer (Baldwin, 1998 p.137) and, because of that, Baldwin went to the self-imposed exile in Paris mentioned above.
Racism in the USA was so prevalent that James Baldwin would even refuse to touch a watermelon even though that stereotype was more used from the 1850 to the beginnings of the 1900s. Baldwin did not want to risk it and so he would avoid doing anything that seemed stereotypical to black people (Baldwin, 1963). In relation to his exile, in 1970, while speaking with Ida Lewis, Baldwin says: “the possibility of a certain kind of dialogue in America has ended.
Maybe the possibility of it was never real, but the hate certainly was. Now the western world (…) is coalescing according to the principle under which it was organized, and that principle is white supremacy” (Pratt, 1989 p.85).
It was in Paris, he could find himself and would become something that he knew he could not be in America; that is, a writer in the true sense of the word and not only a writer who was read because he was black, as that was not very common at the time. Baldwin also wanted to be part of the American fiction because according to him “Most contemporary fiction is designed to corroborate you” so that exile would also be helpful in order to help him organize his ideas and to get more inspiration (Pratt, 1978). James Baldwin would find himself as part of the Left Bank.
The Left Bank was known to be one of the places in France where most of the artists would live and share ideas and thoughts. Artists like Henri Matisse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, F.
Scott Fitzgerald had also lived there. It was also there that James Baldwin would find inspiration, from Jazz musicians, to street life protagonist like prostituted and junkies, that at the time were neglected in literature or mainstream article. This was one aspect that which made James Baldwin’s writing iconoclastic.
Personally, Baldwin was by himself for the first time. This period, marked by solitude, would let him free from metaphorical chains (color skin and sexuality) and mark the emergence of Baldwin as a writer. The initial period in Paris is marked by some of this finest writing, for the magazine
“Zero” and one essay in particular, “The Preservation of Innocence” (Baldwin, 1998), written in 1949 and which is seldom discussed nowadays.
The fact that he wrote so many good articles while he was alone would cause a paradox with his ideal of an artist because according to him, an artist is “of the people and part of the people” and Baldwin was alone. It was also around this time that most people would compare some of James Baldwin’s writings to the ones of Amiri Baraka (Pratt, 1978). While the two of them would touch the same topics such as love and hate, the two had two different points of view regarding those two subjects. On one hand, Baraka hated white people due to his experience as a black man in America, and, on the other hand, James Baldwin would feel discrimination due to his experience as a black man, but also due to a severe bitterness of trying to find himself (Pratt, 1978).
Because of the two similar points of view and experience the two managed to form a bond so deep that when James Baldwin died, Baraka was, alongside Toni Morrison, one of the people selected to make a eulogy (Pratt, 1978).
Focusing once again on his personal life there is an essay worth mentioning, which was titled as
“My Dungeon Shook” and in this essay we see James Baldwin criticizing American society in a brutal way for their behavior, especially about their treatment towards black people. Most notably, it constitutes a testament of how tough and hard life was for black people during Baldwin’s lifetime. Baldwin starts the essay by mentioning that his nephew will never see his grandfather, despite the fact that he was much like him and adds that the grandfather “had a terrible life; he was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart he really believed what white people said about him” (Baldwin, 1998 p. 291) so this was not a physical death but, instead, a spiritual and psychological death that absolutely made Baldwin’s father turn to religion, showing more or less the same reason why James Baldwin had also turned to religion. Baldwin would leave religion for not believing in God’s existence after he saw how black people were being treated in the USA.
In that same essay, Baldwin begins by giving his nephew one important piece of advice by saying that “you can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger.” (Baldwin, 1998 p. 291). What James Baldwin wants to say with this advice is that not only his nephew, but also black people in general should not feel insecure and should not take white people’s world so seriously. They should believe more in themselves, and this point of view
can be seen in several of Baldwin’s works, especially the ones where he makes a fictious self- portrait in a character which shows that Baldwin believes that black people are stronger than they think, but at the same time it shows that Baldwin believes that the power of words can be as or, even, more dangerous than physical harm.
Perhaps one of the most intense quotes we can select in Baldwin’s essay is the one where he says that “this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it” (Baldwin, 1998 p.292)it is amazing how much power words can have and this quote is no exception. It is really astounding how much hatred and bitterness James Baldwin holds regarding his own country. In this unassuming quote, Baldwin manages to express his main issue with USA and at the same time he makes sure that not only Americans, but also the entire world sees how bad black people were being treated back then. The fact that he utterly refuses to forgive his own country says a lot, but perhaps the most remarkable part of this already impactful quote, is when he mentions that the people who see this “crime” usually tend to have two reactions regarding it because they either do not know what this crime is all about or, worse than that, they know very well what the problem is but they look sideways and ignore it fully.
Following this, in this same essay, James Baldwin has some interesting insights regarding mankind such as the fact that a person can be very strong psychologically but not even the strongest people can defend and escape from the cruelty of certain actions and names. And he goes on to say that the worst crime is not to insult and treat other people badly, but instead, the worst crime that a person can commit is to see those insults and abuses and do nothing about them. Continuing with the essay, Baldwin goes on to confront white people by stating that because of them, black people manage to live worse than some of the characters of Charles Dickens. Baldwin also claims that this is not due to bitterness on his part.
James Baldwin own conscious of his sexuality is a major aspect of his works. It should be noted, however that according to the historian George Chauncey, and regarding the New York gay culture in the 1940s “the closet was not always the defining aspect of men’s social interactions with each other and the broader society”, cited by Battle and Bennett (2009 p.414) thus in a way, many of the gay people from New York were like that simply because of the social hierarchy and due to race and class. It is curious to see that, according to many authors the Harlem
Renaissance would not be possible without the participation of gay, lesbian and bisexual people, as many members of that group were openly homosexual.
Considering his own status as homosexual, perhaps one the most prominent James Baldwin’s declarations came from an interview that he gave to Richard Goldstein; when asked if he felt a stranger by being gay in America, Baldwin simply answered “Well first of all I feel like a stranger in America from almost every considerable angle except, oddly enough, as a black person.” (Baldwin, 2014 p.59) What Baldwin means by that is that for him homosexuality is something natural and that comes from the inside of a person, so it is perfectly acceptable to be like that and, therefore, he feelt it quite odd to know that in America he was considered to be more of a stranger from being gay rather than being colored.
Baldwin also believes that the fact that made him realize that perhaps he was homosexual, came when he was still in high school, “It hit me with great force while I was in the pulpit. I must have been fourteen (…) I had no idea what you were supposed to do about it. I didn’t really understand any of what I felt; except I knew I loved one boy, for example.” (Baldwin, 2014 p.60)
However, in the same interview, Baldwin considers himself to be some sort of a iconoclast, especially considering that he felt that he never fitted in clubs back in the day, and at the same time he came to realize that “I was alone in so many levels and this was one more aspect of it” (Baldwin, 2014 p. 60)
In that same interview, Baldwin mentions that his book Giovanni’s Room is not a mirror towards his own homosexuality but instead, it is a mirror to all the people that are in love and do not want to show it to anyone; according to Baldwin “Giovanni is not about homosexuality. It’s about what happens to you if you are afraid to love anybody” (Baldwin, 2014 p.61)
Once again considering the subject of sexuality, James Baldwin believes that the question of sexuality is also what makes a writer good and the more a writer shows this in the books, the better writer he is. Baldwin, 2014 states “the question of trying to become a writer are all linked with the question of the sexuality”, and once a person considers this quote, that same quote makes sense in a way that a person, much like with his own sexuality and love life, must give everything in order to be successful and happy; and the same thing happens in the books. If a writer does not give everything he was to his books, if a writer does not express everything he feels when he writes, then he will not feel fulfilled and will always have an empty space in him, that will never be filled. Most importantly, readers will not connect with the author, because they will read the books and feel nothing; but if a writer puts his “flesh and bones” in the books, the
readers can see how much effort the author made in order to write that and because of that, the readers can feel something for the author, whether it is sympathy, pity or even feel that in a metaphorical way. Being identified with the writer and feeling the same thing that the writer feels creates a bond between the author and the reader which becomes fundamental in literary expression and communication.
It is curious to see that for James Baldwin, people are not afraid of homosexuality, but instead, people are afraid of his homosexuality because they are terrified of what the Bible says about that. According to the Bible, one of the punishments of choice for committing sin is death, and thus people feel that if someone is homosexual, that same someone will be punished with a sudden death; and at the same time Baldwin believes that “Americans are terrified of feeling anything. And homophobia is simply an extreme example of the American terror (…) I’ve never met a people more infantile in my life’’ (Baldwin, 2014 p. 64) In the end of that interview, Baldwin gives a good piece of advice to all the people who are afraid of coming out by saying that
“If you don’t live the only life you have, you wont live some other life, you won’t have any life at all.” (Baldwin, 2014 p. 74) So, in way what Baldwin means by that is that a person should always enjoy life without being afraid of suffering any consequences for happiness. A person should be his own self, and not what most people want him to be; and that was what Baldwin did regarding his own homosexuality. In America he was not welcomed because of that, so he left his comfort zone and went to a country where he had never gone, simply because he felt that it was a way to be himself, and at the same time he could have a fresh start.
During the 60’s, the arise of the Civil Rights Movement made James Baldwin’s more hopeful for a brighter future in the United Stated of America for Afro American. James Baldwin suffered firsthand all the abuse and the discrimination that could be felt in America during the times before the Civil Rights Movement and one example of that same discrimination happened when he got on to a bus in Montgomery and when he simply asked the price of the ticket, the bus driver not only did not reply but simply ignored him and turned the face away.
According to Baldwin, Martin Luther King (1929-1968), the leading figure of the Civil Rights Movement, was not an ordinary man, in fact, and quoting Baldwin “I liked him. It is rare that one likes a world-famous man” (Baldwin, 1998 p.638) so it soon became clear that there was something special about Martin Luther King. And the power of Luther King also became clear
when, at least according to Baldwin, it could be noticed that “white men find King dangerous” and at the same time “many Negroes also find King dangerous”, (Baldwin, 1998 p.652) so in way not only Luther King had sympathy and respect from his peers; he also managed to enlist fear simply by the fact that he was able to change the paradigm in the USA so quickly.
Baldwin rapidly became a member were the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It was in those two movements that Baldwin managed to be himself, managed to say what he had deeply buried inside of him. It was there that Baldwin had the chance to travel around the USA and say what he felt, what should be said without fear of being discriminated and most notably it was also there that he found out that he even had some white people who were deeply interested in what he had to say. And at the same time, Baldwin showed some interest regarding socialism, especially considering when Baldwin himself said that
“I don't know, but the price of any real socialism here is the eradication of what we call the race problem ... Racism is crucial to the system to keep Black[s] and whites at a division so both were and are a source of cheap labor.”(Pratt, 1989 p.131)
It was also during the Civil Rights Movement, especially in 1963, that James Baldwin began to be more known abroad and even the coveted Time magazine had him on the cover of one Issue (see supplementary figure 1 in Annex) and stated that he was more than a simple writer and that there was no one that showed as much as him regarding the discrepancy North-South.
This discrepancy can be seen in to three major aspects “black vs white”, “liberal vs conservative” and “old vs new”. Since the country is called United States of America, it is somewhat ironic that there are three major divisions on it. Of course, that this was during the time where the Civil Rights Movements were getting a major attention in the country, including the ending of the infamous Jim Crow laws that could be seen through the entire country during that time. While it can be said, with reason, that Rosa Parks was the fuel that ignited the fire, perhaps the main issue that sparked a major change was World War II because, due to their sacrifices and because of their major importance in that war, black people felt that they deserved more respect, and most important than that, they felt that they deserved to be full citizens. In the book “Conversations with James Baldwin” which gathers several interviews given by James Baldwin, we are recalled to a talk that he gave to Studs Terkel in 1961, and he said that “our youth is so badly educated (…) because education demands a certain daring (…) you have to teach some people to think, you have to teach them to think about everything” (Pratt, 1989 p.15)
this lack of education can certainly be seen as one of the main reasons why racism was, and still is, prevalent in one of the most central countries in the world, so, in a way, it is impressive how a sentence produced 60 years ago can still be meaningful in the modern days. And, as if racism had not been enough, in the 60s the Vietnam War started, and the USA would find themselves more divided than they were. If the patriotic spirit of some people, made them believe that the war was the right thing to do, when the threat of Communism spreading through Asia was the main factor for the USA to join that War, some years later, while the war was still going on, major polls would in fact show that many Americans considered it to be a mistake their involvement in it. Several reasons can be pointed out to explain that, but perhaps the most notable one was the fact that soldiers drafted to the War were young and if the youth was already badly educated by going to War they would certainly not get a proper education and the ones who survived would get traumas to last for their lifetime.
Concerning not only the government views on the Vietnam War but also the civil rights movements it is important to refer what James Baldwin said in an interview carried by Joe Walker in 1972 that “The government and the people have nothing to do with each other. We hear about a silent majority, and I am prepared to believe it exists, but they aren’t the only people in the country and besides I’m not sure (Spiro) Agnew speaks for them” (Pratt, 1989 p.127)
Spiro Agnew was the USA vice president from 1969 to 1973, which was an important timeline in the USA because not only the War was happening, but the Civil Rights movement started to be more prevalent than ever, especially considering that Martin Luther King had been assassinated in 1968. One must bear in mind however that while Agnew supported the Civil Rights Movement, he, at the same time, condemned several instances of reaction from black people, especially because he would upbraid black leaders which would cause him to be compared with the controversial George Wallace from Alabama who was famous for saying “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” (Wallace, 1963)
It was also in 1963 that James Baldwin had a meeting (alongside other Afro-American writers) with the Attorney General Robert Kennedy. And while the meeting could be a focal point regarding racism and the civil rights movement, that same meeting reached a stalemate, most notably because Kennedy in spite of everything did not manage to fully understand how deeply rooted racism was, and how much impact it had in people’s lives. Accordingly, most of the
writers decided to leave the meeting in shock, and to make things even worse, following James Baldwin participation on a TV Show later on, Kennedy decided that Baldwin needed to be more investigated and to be followed more deeply, which resulted in a huge FBI file on James Baldwin that consisted in more than 1880 pages which was more than the combined files on all the other writers. This embittered James Baldwin even more with his own country, but at the same time it had the power of making Baldwin more active in the Social Rights movements.
Baldwin took part in the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in which more than 300,000 people gathered and it was in that same March that Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech. And in order to understand how powerful Baldwin’s words could be, he was one of the people also scheduled to speak in that same March, but he was forbidden to do so because many people were afraid that he would ignite the flame even more and cause trouble not only his peers but also the people present in the event by causing more riots and the arrests and possible deaths of innocent people.
But another flame would be ignited when there was an attack on a black church in Alabama just a few weeks after the famous March and this would lead James Baldwin to travel to Selma, Alabama, and it was there that he saw many mothers, babies and elder people being treated like animals, by being forced to wait long times at lines and soldiers not doing a single thing to stop that, instead they would even support that.
It was there that Baldwin took and decided to blame Washington for doing nothing regarding the rights and the well-being of the black people and it was also there that he would once again point his finger at Kennedy, blaming him for all that was wrong in his country.
James Baldwin was also anti-war and he notably criticized the Vietnam War, in fact in an interview that Baldwin gave to the Esquire magazine in 1968, he stated that “But to other black people, all the other people who are suffering under the same system that we are suffering from, that system is led by the last of the Western nations. It is perfectly conceivable or would be if there were not so many black people here, that the Americans decide to "liberate" South Africa.
Isn't it? That is to say to keep the horrors of communism away, all the freedom fighters in South Africa would turn South Africa into another Vietnam. No one is fooled about what you are doing in Vietnam. At least no black cat is fooled by it. You are not fighting for what the Western world calls material self-interest” (online republication, Esquire, 2017)
What he means in this interview is that Americans only fight for what gives them honor abroad and if there is a self-interest to it; if there is none of that they rightly refuse to do such things and this was it. According to Baldwin, they refused to do anything to improve the rights of the black people, because there was no self-interest to it. In relation to democracy, as an expression to the desires of the people, Baldwin questions himself: “but what, in America, is the will of the people?
And who, for the above-named, are the people? The people, whoever they may be, know as much about the forces which have placed the above-named gentlemen in power as they do about the forces responsible for the slaughter in Vietnam” and at the same time as he writes to his sister
“White lives, for the forces which rule in this country, are no more sacred than Black ones, as many and many a student is discovering, as the white American corpses in Vietnam prove. If the American people are unable to contend with their elected leaders for the redemption of their own honor and the loves of their own children, we the Blacks, the most rejected of the Western children, can expect very little help at their hands; which, after all, is nothing new.” (Baldwin, 1970)
In other words, according to Baldwin, if Americans have no pity for what they are doing to other people in Vietnam, people who are completely innocent and just happen to have different ideologies, how can they act towards their own people. They will not, what they only care about is having glory and the triumph.
It was in the memorable debate facing Buckley that Baldwin gave one of his most passionate descriptions about life of Afro-Americans, he talks about his personal life growing up and the memories from his native Harlem. It was on his native Harlem that he first heard that a black man could be president of the USA, and when Robert Kennedy told him so, at least according to Baldwin on that same speech: “I remember, for example, when the ex-Attorney General, Mr.
Robert Kennedy, said that it was conceivable that in forty years, in America, we might have a Negro president. That sounded like a very emancipated statement, I suppose, to white people.
They were not in Harlem when this statement was first heard. And they’re not here, and possibly will never hear the laughter and the bitterness, and the scorn with which this statement was greeted. From the point of view of the man in the Harlem barber shop, Bobby Kennedy only got here yesterday, and he’s already on his way to the presidency. We’ve been here for four hundred years and now he tells us that maybe in forty years, if you’re good, we may let you become president.”(Baldwin, 1965)
Moreover, black people relationships and lives would also change because, James Baldwin notes that, even more so, as one realizes that: “By 1955 when I was a grown man, something had begun to change. And what had changed was the relationship that black people had to each other (...) From that time on, what a white person’s judgement of a black man was began to dimmish in value’’ (Pratt, 1989 p.143)
When asked about his reasons to believe in that, Baldwin retorts that “the breakup of the black family unit, which is tragic and one of the reasons that so many boys and girls are on the needle (…) If you had to come from Mississippi to Chicago or from Georgia to New York you had to deal with the questions you might not have in the South (…) This may seem a misplaced word in such grim context, but in short, black America had changed in those years and had changed forever.”
(Pratt, 1989 p.144)
As a matter of fact, Baldwin mentions that black America had changed forever, and if one bears in mind that his words are from an interview that took place in 1973, the year is important as it gives us some contextualization, especially when in the previous year the Watergate Case detonated and the implications on America’s government would be immense with Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew having to present their resignation, the first and only time that it had happened in USA history.
CHAPTER2: Themes in James Baldwin’s Literature
However, it is not uncommon in James Baldwin literature to see him talk about fear and fury, especially, regarding black society and the white people, and quoting Baldwin who in his short story Sonny’s Blues remarks that he sees his “own face trapped in the darkness which roared outside” (Baldwin, 1998 p.831)
Regarding his literature and, in a way, the subject of identity, author Beau Fly Jones, in his essay
“James Baldwin: the struggle for identity” makes one solid and valid point when he states that
“Though obviously prejudiced on the subject of Negro-white relations, Baldwin's personal experience and literary freedom yield an insight and comprehensiveness that social scientists lack”, (Jones, 1966 p.107) interestingly enough, Jones discards the idea of personal experience, while at the same time showing that sociology can, and still is, an important part of James Baldwin’s literature, especially judging by the fact that most of, if not all, of his writing is based on social aspects, and the social status that were taking place on the USA.
In the short story Sonny’s Blues one can clearly see some guilt. When the narrator’s daughter dies of polio, he begins to blame himself for not being able to save her, and in turn this will lead the narrator to turn to drugs; in fact, the narrator says: “I was sitting in the living room in the dark by myself, and I suddenly thought of Sonny. My trouble had made his real." (Baldwin, 1998 p.852). And what seemed to be (and was) a tragedy with too many repercussions had the “gift”
of uniting the two brothers together, as both were hit hard by the tragedy. In fact, it was this tragedy made the narrator realize what was going on with Sonny’s life, as he was also victim of several tragedies and to a certain extent we can say that music was his only road to salvation: he used it to understand himself and communicate with others which could lead to one of the categories mentioned above, that is, Sonny felt frustration growing on him more and more as he was rarely listened and therefore, as I mentioned above, he used music to express everything that he felt. He had so little attention towards him that even when he was arrested, his own brother did not communicate with him as much as he should.
Nevertheless, the tragedy of losing a daughter had the “gift” of making sure that the narrator
“learned his lesson” and after that he decided to make amends with his past and to reconnect with his brother and give his music a chance. One must not forget that for Sonny, music itself
was so important, that he not only felt as being himself, but at the same time he felt to be part of a community, as his feelings expressed in the music were the same feelings that all the African- American community felt at that time.
Having in mind that this story was written in 1957 it should be noted that James Baldwin was probably inspired by the life of many African-Americans who were suffering with segregation and separation from their loved ones. In fact, the life of the African-Americans was so bad that only in 1954 the Supreme Court passed a law which ended the racial segregation in schools, with the famous Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.
The problems and the suffering that losing a daughter can cause to a person, can be traced to another of the five elements of James Baldwin’s literature mentioned above. In this case, we see the idea of “Origin and Fate”, as it was fate that managed to bring the brothers together, and it was Sonny music that made him connect with the African-American community, and therefore it made him connect with his African roots. At the same time, we can also see the idea of unconditional love and the old idea of “blood is thicker than water”, notably because the narrator sees and realizes that his brother is happy with music and does not leave his cocaine addiction, but after his personal tragedy and not wanting to lose another member of his family, he decides to embrace his brother and makes the decision of accepting him for what he is.
In another interview, with Herbert Lottman in 1972, we see a side of James Baldwin not very common to arise. We see a personal but at the same time revealing side of him, we learn that for Baldwin “A writer writes because he has to. It’s not as calculated as it seems. A writer lives for years getting rejection slips and if you’re black (…) something drives you (…). Abroad I became freer I trusted myself more and trusted my work. I ceased being corralled as a negro writer”
(Pratt, 1989 p.110) in fact he says that abroad he became freer, and this is one of the main aspects that can be seen on his literature. A literature fluid and free, something that in a racist and prejudicial place such as the USA would probably not be seen with good eyes. Also in that same conversation, another interesting point of view concerning his literature can be seen, especially when James Baldwin states that “The only one I’m fighting is myself. I am my only problem. My integrity as a man is involved. If a man happens to be an artist, that’s the terrain on which the battle is fought”. (Pratt, 1989 p.111) In a way, this means that sometimes writers and other artists occasionally fight with inner demons, and that art and literature is their escape from that battlefield, it is also on that “battlefield” that the artists tend to unburden most of their
problems, and this happens to be the case with James Baldwin who had several problems in his own household and therefore decided to write about what he felt and, at the same time, one might say that he would also write to show people the issues that he and other black people were facing on their lives. As Baldwin puts it, from another interview “When I was young, the idea of being a black writer was a strange one for blacks to accept. My father was very opposed to it (…) because he thought I’d get my heart and head broken (…) But you have do what you have to do”.
(Pratt, 1989 p.161)
Other short story important in James Baldwin bibliography is “Previous Condition”. This short- story was written earlier (1948) but nonetheless it is also part of the collection “Going to meet the Man”. In this short story, we see a new characteristic mark in Baldwin’s novels; and while is not as prevalent as the other five, this one is very important, especially in this novel, and it is the idea of fear, especially when Peter, the protagonist, suffers from many nightmares throughout the beginning of the story, and most of them related to his own personal life. While nightmares are often caused by fear, it should be noted that, in Peter’s case, those same nightmares can be attributed to the fact that Peter is having a rough life, as he is a black person. So, once again, and as it is usual in James Baldwin literature we see the idea of racism; and in Peter’s case we see that he is being called “nigger” since he was seven; to make this worse, it causes Peter to refuse to acknowledge his own identity, in fact Peter even says “I hate niggers” and makes him to hang out with white people more than with black people.
However, not even at his own house was Peter safe, as he was usually psychologically abused by his own family who often labeled him as weak. It did not last long until Peter decided that he had enough and when he was 16 he left his parents’ house, and went as far as moving to a white neighborhood, because as the story says, he left the house “hating all the people in his neighborhood”.
And this would eventually lead us to the five themes mentioned above as we see Peter experiencing Origin/Destiny; Anxiety; Doubt; Frustration and Guilt. The idea of frustration and anxiety can be traced in Peter because he was so corrupted in his youth and had so much anger and frustration accumulated in his mind that when he decided to move to Harlem, he was supposed to feel at home with “his people” (black people) but not even there he managed to find himself and to be one of them, and unlike the previous story, where suffering manages to bring family members together; in this novel this does not happen, in fact it is precisely the opposite
what happens as Peter’s life gets more and more miserable since he began to suffer from racial and the family abuse.
However, Peter could not get rest and he once again would find himself not welcomed at the house where his friend Jules, a Jew, managed to let him stay, as he was found out by the landlady and forced to move out in an extremely racist act. Peter had to move in with Jules, but this time at his place and not in a rented place, in fact, Peter’s situation was so bad that he even says “I don’t want to hate anybody, but now, maybe I can’t love anybody either” (Baldwin, 1998 p.824) so we see a major conflict of interests. It is at Jules’ house that Peter and Jules begin debating regarding the African-American and the Jewish community in America, soon realizing that both of them have a lot in common, especially regarding their status in America as both of them are not wanted in the country for not being “100% American”, so not only did Baldwin spoke on behalf of the black community, but also of the Jewish community.
After these philosophical debates regarding race and belonging to a place, Peter decides to have dinner with a friend who suggests that Peter should sue his landlady for throwing him out of the house. Peter realizes that hate is not the answer and decides to do nothing and that his true place is among his own people. He soon realizes he has nothing in common with them except his skin, which proves that a poor mentality and a continuous abuse of a person can shape their mentality for the worse. We can see this in Peter himself, he was so much abused that he did not belong in a single place and therefore he could not live his own life feeling at “home”.
In 1960, Baldwin published “This morning, This evening, So soon”. In this story we learn that the narrator went to Paris leaving a place where racism is more than evident and therefore, he had to escape from it in order to, as he puts it “escape the menacing, the hostile, killing world”. It should be noted that James Baldwin did the same thing in 1948, so, in a way, it is autobiographical, further evidence that proves it is the fact that both the narrator and Baldwin managed to live without the fear of prejudice because of their skin and most importantly they could do whatever they wanted, within certain rules, without having the fear of suffering, with the narrator going to the point of stating that Paris was the city that “saved his life”. In fact, life in Paris was so great that the narrator managed to fall in love with a woman, but every rose has its thorn and soon he would find himself in trouble and this would make him want to go back to a
“New World” where he would be free at last and ironically he would find out that the “New World” he so desperately wanted to find out was his own home, better and improved.
In sum, we can find out that almost, if not all, of James Baldwin’s novels can be inspired by his own life as a black, homosexual person in America. Baldwin who can be seen as frustrated, fed up and tired with all the trappings of racism, discrimination and homophobia in his home country decides to write everything that he feels in his books, novels and articles, like Sonny who pours everything that he feels into his songs, and therefore can be seen as a “mirror” of Baldwin.
Concerning the idea of homosexuality, Eldridge Cleaver showed some spiteful and homophobic tirades against Baldwin’s literature going as far as stating that “The white man has deprived him of his masculinity, castrated him in the center of his burning skull,” (Cleaver, 1999 p.128).
In an interview with John Hall, in 1970, James Baldwin also believes that pretty much all writers find the idea to write novels, a bit limited. Using his own words one can see that “real changes in form occur, and I doubt if one’s contemporaries are able to see a change when it does occur (…) Since this is so, the only thing I can do is work, and see where my experiments lead me”(Pratt, 1989 p.104) and not only this, Baldwin also firmly believes that experiment is not only an important part of a writer’s life it is also something common and something that all writers do, even if they do not want to admit it. When asked if he was experimenting on his literature and writing he simply retorted that “Any writer is” before adding that “Writing is a polite term for it (…) People overlook this fact. And there’s an awful lot of my experience which has never been seen in the English language before” (Pratt, 1989 p. 104) and then he gives the example of Rufus from the book Another Country.
Another Country, written in 1962, was one more controversial book by James Baldwin who continued the trend of controversy that surrounds almost all his books. The motifs that led to this book achieve a level of infamy since, without any doubt, in a casual way James Baldwin mentions and deals with themes and topics virtually no one would dare to touch. Themes that were taboo are his objective, to the point even the FBI got involved by the time the book was launched. The idea of exploring and talking about love, is clearly something that most writers deal with in their books, but what made Another Country so controversial was the fact that it deals with love in a different way, and that is what makes James Baldwin so unique. Interracial relationships, bisexuality and extra conjugal relationships are subjects that even in modern times are something that most people avoid mentioning in books and even talk in casual talks, yet James Baldwin would make it a major theme for this book.
It is correctly said that pretty much all of Baldwin’s literature is based on his personal experiences and life events, but, above all, Baldwin likes to insinuate to the myth of the forbidden fruit. This myth could be seen in one of the novels that I am going to explore “Giovanni’s Room,’’
this novel embraced naturally the idea of homosexuality something that at the time, as it was mentioned largely through this dissertation, was seen as something somewhat criminal.
Baldwin did not care if he went against the norms, he simply wrote what he wanted, even if, as it was the case with Another Country, it made him become a “persona non grata” in the cultural influential groups or, even, drew the attention of the FBI, who deemed him as a pervert and considered his book as obscene. This can be fully seen when the question “Isn’t James Baldwin a well-known pervert?” was asked by an FBI director once he had seen the book “Go Tell it on the Mountain’’, but while this could seem to be a harsh attack to a literary artist such as Baldwin, it did not diminish his morale as he would declare that all his books bare the implicit same message.
His FBI file did not just call him a pervert, it was full of attacks to his personal integrity, especially having this about him “Clarence Jones told [redacted] that he had been spending too much time on the Civil Rights Movement. Jones said that he had been critical of Jimmy’s Baldwin activities, and he mentioned that Jimmy’s sexual propensities are known’’ (FBI, 1963-1971 p.63). So, in other words, they areimplying that being a homosexual, in those days was not only something to be ashamed of, but also a matter that demanded a deep investigation, otherwise it would not be mentioned in classified files such as the FBI ones. In a way, all this actions against James Baldwin would also have a major impact not only on his life but also on his books. But his sexuality was not the only thing that FBI found odd and worth a deep investigation, as one can see in this excerpt, also taken from James’ FBI files that “James Baldwin also spoke at the dinner, at which time he (…) stated that he has never been afraid of Russia, China, or Cuba but he is terrified of this country. (…) He stated that the real victim is the poor white man who does these things because he was told generations ago to do them” (FBI 1963-1971 p.70).
In the files, James Baldwin was labeled as a communist especially in this passage: “Baldwin has also been associated with several Communist Party front organizations. He was a sponsor of a rally to abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee held in April 1961 (…)’’ and ‘’ (…) he was a speaker at a dinner held in New York City under sponsorship of Emergency Civil Liberties Committee’’ (FBI p.121)
While one cannot for sure determine whether he was a Communist or not, it should be noted that
“His poetry appeared in the Communist Daily Worker, and his essays in journals, like Partisan Review and Commentary, both influenced by the anti-Stalinist left’’ (Mullen, Bill – 2019, p.19) however one person also needs to understand that this pseudo-Communist affiliation does not influence James Baldwin in most of his works, but could be, instead a red herring used to distract readers and American society from his books, considered as highly controversial due to their homoerotic and racial tones.
Nonetheless, it is essential for someone to read and drink from his literature, something so vast and deep in many ways and, quite clearly, Baldwin’s literature works almost like a prediction of what our world, but especially the USA would turn out to be with the Black Lives Matter movement. So, in a way it is not incorrect to say that James Baldwin paved the way for this movement, using his words, his books, and his speeches.
It was not by accident that I mentioned speeches because there is a famous speech by Baldwin that everybody should read. While speeches are not considered by many as literature per se, they also deserve to be analyzed and deal on the same degree and on the same level of attention of books from the same author.
Having the idea of Black Lives Matter in mind, and considering the relevance and the importance that this theme has nowadays, it makes all the sense to consider a speech that James Baldwin gave at the University of Berkley in 1979. In this famed speech several remarks can be seen and most notably are so prevalent in today’s modern society. From stating without a shadow of a doubt that “Every white person in this country — I do not care what he says or what she says — knows one thing. … They know that they would not like to be black here. If they know that, they know everything they need to know. And whatever else they may say is a lie." (Baldwin -1979) this speech spares no one when it comes to criticize and tell things the way they are and not the way people want to hear them. By using words instead of violence and manifestations, Baldwin quickly distanced himself from most people that normally would go on marches and suffered the consequences. Also, by saying those words James Baldwin shows a certain and justified bitterness concerning the way black people are treated and, at the same time, draws attention to the social advantages white people enjoy in a traditionally racist society and this can be notably seen the moment he says that white people “know that they would not like to be black here’’
(Baldwin, 1979). Some people could argue that this sentence only made sense at the time the
speech was pronounced but even nowadays it can clearly be seen that white people are unfairly privileged especially if differences concerning social and judicial status are considered. This speech was also important in the sense that showed us how little America had changed from Baldwin’s youth to his adulthood and up to his death. Baldwin was as good with words as he was saying them, he showed us that he could captivate a major audience, having them in the palm of his hand, thus, this speech is not only famous because of this sentence. According to a Cecil Brown, who was present at the time Baldwin gave this speech, we can see that “Baldwin was saying that the civil rights movement had been revoked, because Black people after 400 years were still being oppressed, and not valued like whites,” (Natividad, 2020), Cecil is considered to be one of Baldwin’s protégées, and as Leeming puts it on Baldwin’s biography “Baldwin was especially fond of Brown. He enjoyed showing him his old Parisian haunts, and he helped him meet people who could be of use to him”(Leeming, 1995 p.315). Cecil also held huge respect for James and believed that his greatness was caused by his ability both as a writer and an activist and, as it can be seen today, his words which still resound, and it is not hard to see why.
Some other important part of this speech is the part in which Baldwin reflects about violence on black people and the effect that it has on them, using his words we can see that “When you try slaughter a people and leave them with nothing to lose, you create somebody with nothing to lose. If I aint got nothing to lose, what you gonna do to me?” (Baldwin, 1979). In fact, he uses the expression “nothing to lose’’ and presently, more than ever, this could be seen throughout the United States when the first cases of police brutality started to occur against black people.
The violent death of George Floyd was simply the sparkle that ignited the fire, and finally, at last, some people soon came to know and understand the racism and the violence that black people had been talking about for so long.
Some people tend to forget that Baldwin also had a pivotal role in this several years before all this, on the speech mentioned above. People were fire, and Baldwin the gasoline, but no one would imagine that the sparkle would be ignited. The sassiness, ruthless and venomous aspect of Baldwin’s literature and writing could also be seen in this speech, especially when he calls out white people’s hypocrisy; as Baldwin’s puts it “Our presence in this country terrifies every white man walking (…) They needed us for labor and for sport, now they can’t get rid of us. (…) We cannot be exiled, and we cannot be accommodated. Now, something’s got to give’’ (Baldwin, 1979). By reading or hearing these excerpts from the infamous James Baldwin speech one can see that the prevalent the idea of identity, so many times mentioned in this dissertation, is more
