James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time is a searing indictment of the systemic racism perpetrated by white Americans against their Black brethren. Written in 1962 and 1963, the two essays that comprise the book describe the suffering and humiliation African-Americans have endured in America. Though some progress has been made since publication, this book seems as powerful now as in the 1960s. Look no further than the murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers to see the persistence of racism and violence against Black Americans.
In the last few weeks, however, White Americans finally seem more receptive to viewing the long list of murders as part of a systemic problem, rather than another aberration. Black Lives Matter signs have sprouted in many communities and scores of companies, sports teams, and government entities are making long-overdue changes. Yet, so much work must be done.
There is a plethora of excellent books about race currently on the bestseller lists, yet Baldwin’s book is seminal. His prose is mesmerizing with its psychological, political, literary and religious underpinnings. The two pieces are a passionate plea for white Americans to understand our history, end the violence and cease discrimination in America’s institutions. Baldwin is not optimistic. He recognizes that most people prefer superiority to equality. It is hard to do justice to Baldwin’s writing. Instead, I will share a few quotes.
In Baldwin’s letter to his nephew, he writes,
“You were born where you were born and faced the future you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. “
“The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them (white people). And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe and for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know.”
In the second article titled Letter From A Region In My Mind, Baldwin describes the injustice Black Americans experience.
“The brutality with which Negroes are treated in this country simply cannot be overstated, however unwilling white men may be to hear it. In the beginning-and neither can this be overstated – a Negro just cannot believe that white people are treating him as they do; he does not know what he had done to merit it. And when he realizes that the treatment accorded him has nothing to do with anything he had done, that the attempt of white people to destroy him -for that is what it is – is utterly gratuitous, it is not hard for him to think of white people as devils.”
“I am, then, both visibly and legally the descendant of slaves in a white, Protestant country, and this is what it means to be an American Negro, this who he is - a kidnapped pagan, who was sold like an animal and treated like one, who was once defined by the American Constitution as ‘three-fifths’ of a man, and who, according to the Dred Scott decision, had no rights that a white man was bound to respect.”
Not surprisingly, Baldwin emigrated to France in the early 1950s. He believed that America must end the “racial nightmare” not just for African Americans but for the benefit of all Americans.
In these times of political chaos and racial violence, Baldwin’s views remain prophetic and critical to our democracy.
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