Reckoning or WRECKoning?
James Baldwin (American Novelist, Essayist, & Poet) eloquently voiced the torturous experience of being black in white America, as well as the & psychological consequences of racism FOR BOTH the Oppressed and the Oppressor. The chilling echoes of his lamentations still vibrate in the conscience of America today. Anyone listening to him can only be a better human being because of it. Let his words not get lost in our heart of hearts. Here are a few samples of his penetrative commentaries:
ON HATE:
“I imagine one of the reasons PEOPLE CLING TO THEIR THATES so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with PAIN…People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to BECOME. And they pay for it very simply; BY THE LIVES THEY LEAD…It is certain, in any case, that IGNORANCE, ALLIED WITH POWER, is the most ferocious enemy JUSTICE can have.”
ON THE MYTH OF COLOR:
One of the great things that the white world does not know, but I think I do know, is that Black people are just like everybody else. One has used the myth of Negro and the myth of color to pretend and to assume that you were dealing with, essentially, with something exotic, bizarre, and practically, according to human laws, unknown. ALAS, IT IS NOT TRUE! We’re also mercenaries, dictators, murderers, liars. We are human too.
EXCERPTS FROM THE FAMOUS BALDWIN-BUCKLEY DEBATE:
Leaving aside the bloody catalog of oppression, which we are in one way too familiar with already, what this does to the subjugated, the most private, the most serious thing this does to the subjugated, is to DESROY HIS SENSE OF REALITY…It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, or 6, or 7, to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians WERE YOU!
Let me put it this way, that from a very literal point of view, the harbors and the ports, and the railroads of the country–the economy, especially of the Southern states–could not conceivably be what it has become, if they had not had, and do not still have, indeed for so long, for many generations, cheap labor…The Southern oligarchy, which has still today so very much power in Washington, and therefore some power in the world, was created by my labor and my sweat, and the VIOLATION of my women and the MURDER of my children. This, in the land of the free, and the home of the brave. And no one can challenge that statement. It is a matter of historical record.
If one has got to prove one’s title to the land, isn’t four hundred years enough? FOUR HUNDRED YEARS? At least three wars? The American soil is full of the corpses of my ancestors. WHY IS MY FREEDOM or my citizenship, or MY RIGHT TO LIVE HERE, how is it conceivably a question now?.. Until that moment, until the moment comes when we, the Americans, we, the American people, ARE ABLE TO ACCEPT THE FACT, that I have to accept, for example, that my ancestors are both white and Black. That on that continent we are TRYING TO FORGE A NEW IDENTITY for which WE NEED EACH OTHER and that I am not a ward of America. I am not an object of missionary charity. I am one of the people who built the country–until this moment there is scarcely any hope for the AMERICAN DREAM, because the PEOPLE WHO ARE DENIED participation in it, by their very presence, will WRECK IT. And if that happens it is a very grave moment for the West!”
P.S. “The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has CEASED TO BE A VICTIM: He or she has BECOME A THREAT! …Not everything that is faced can be changed, but NOTHING can be changed UNTIL IT IS FACED.” - James Baldwin
B.P.S. Which is it, America- Reckoning or WRECKoning? …From the Lookout Post.