Baldwin could see things that ordinary commentators couldn't because he saw the world through other people's eyes, and felt the machinery of their thoughts.
In this 1965 appearance at Cambridge University, he mesmerises the audience by telling them what it's like to grow up black in America not even knowing you're black, until one day, as a young child, you catch yourself in the mirror and realise you aren't the person your culture is built for. You actually don't exist, because there is no space in your culture's stories for you.
What brings the predominantly white male audience at Cambridge Union to their feet for a standing ovation, beyond Baldwin's faultless elocution, is his mastery of white American experience. He speaks about racism from inside out, considering that what has happened to white Americans who have succumbed to the disease of racism is worse than what has happened to black Americans who suffer it.
>he mesmerises the audience by telling them what it's like to grow up black in America not even knowing you're black, until one day, as a young child, you catch yourself in the mirror and realise you aren't the person your culture is built for. You actually don't exist, because there is no space in your culture's stories for you.
This seems like a pretty obvious and unsurprising consequence of descending from people that were only brought into that civilization to provide slave labor. How many civilizations have made special effort to reshape their culture for the benefit of the descendants of their slaves? I think anyone that appears "mesmerized" by hearing that probably has not thought very much about the topic, or is putting on a show.
Is there anything comparable to experience of Blacks in America from the cultural standpoint in modern (after Middle Ages) times? For example Black people were brought as slaves into South America and into Caribbean region in particular but were they excluded from the society in the same manner? Were Blacks in South America after getting freedom from slavery segregated in the same way as in US?
It is not a question of 'special effort' it is more of the question of why descendants of slaves were not viewed as part of the civilization, why there was such push against integration.
There are lots of things about US culture that are rather strange when looking from outside.
>It is not a question of 'special effort' it is more of the question of why descendants of slaves were not viewed as part of the civilization, why there was such push against integration.
Well, why would you expect anything else?
If on the one hand they view the descendants of the slaves as being inherently inferior, then certainly they are not going to view them as part of their civilization or want them to integrate. This is an easy thing to think, given they had recently ruled over their ancestors.
If on the other hand they believe the other group is fundamentally equal to them, and only in a temporarily inferior position due to circumstances neither group controlled, consider that the dominant group had just used their power over the other group to brutally exploit them. They have only to ask themselves how they'd behave if someone had done that to them to think that it may not be in their interest to let the other group in to the club where its members will have some power over them.
That is where the "special effort" comes in to play. The dominant group must first be convinced that their former slaves are not fundamentally inferior to them. Then on top of that, they have to be convinced that, even though they treated their own group preferentially to the detriment of the other group, the other group will not treat itself preferentially to the dominant group's detriment, or at least not badly enough to outweigh other concerns (or perhaps that they deserve such treatment).
In regard to South America and the Caribbean, while Europeans ruled those areas, they did not really colonize them in the same way that they colonized the US. European involvement in South America and the Caribbean was mostly limited to wealthy plantation owners, whereas the southern US had significant numbers of people not personally involved with slavery.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Jefferson wrote that while owning slaves, so I'm not really sure why that quote would give anyone the impression that American culture was built for blacks.
> I'm not really sure why that quote would give anyone the impression that American culture was built for blacks.
The difference between James Baldwin and the persona you've adopted for your comments here is that Baldwin was able to see things from another person's perspective. You could probably do that too, if you tried, but you haven't in this case.
You're simply asserting that the ideals used to justify the American war of independence are a sham, and everybody should know it and accept it as resolutely as you choose to interpret it
Did you watch the video of Baldwin at Cambridge Union?
He gives the audience a first hand account of what it is to be a 4 year old black kid in America. The audience didn't know what that experience was like. It was literally foreign to them. They were surprised and enlightened by what they heard.
Why do you think the Cambridge Union gave Baldwin a standing ovation? What do you think they were responding to?
What do you think those people, drawn from the 1% of the country that America broke from with Jefferson's words to become its future ruling class, learned from that 40 year old son of a drug addict from Harlem?
I saw that video somewhat recently. I believe what the audience probably learned is that Buckley was not terribly effective at debating in that format. I am not sure what they learned from Baldwin. I don't recall learning anything from him in that video.
I would be shocked if that was actually the first time they learned that being a member of a conquered or enslaved people was really not very nice in a variety of different ways. Maybe they did not know about some of the particular ways in which it is bad, but these are as you noted young members of the elite class in a rapidly decolonializing empire. I would expect them to know the ethical debate over imperialism like the back of their hand, and would expect them to generally be unfavorable toward it.
These people knew about the history of slavery, not just in Europe and the Americas, but about, for instance, slavery in the middle east, where, despite bringing in huge numbers of African slaves, there are virtually no descendants of African slaves today, due to the customary treatment of slaves there.
As for whether Jefferson's ideals are a sham, clearly they are to some degree. Maybe the people who signed that document believed all men are created equal, and believed that applied also to their slaves, but if they did believe that, they clearly did not see much of a problem with ignoring their inalienable rights. This contradiction has been discussed since before the ink was dry, and is quite well known. They were not laying out a carefully reasoned philosophical treatise, they were trying to rally their own side in a political debate.
An ignorant person could believe that American ideals mean that American society was built for all Americans equally, but the audience members were not ignorant people. So I don't know, you tell me what you think they learned, and why you think they gave a standing ovation.
> An ignorant person could believe that American ideals mean that American society was built for all Americans equally, but the audience members were not ignorant people.
I imagine most of them knew that Jefferson was a slave owner, and all the rest of it that you lucidly describe.
Baldwin did three things to earn their respect.
Firstly, he lured them into seeing racial injustice without triggering their defences or tribal hostilities, by giving them the vantage point of 4 year old eyes. He told them his first 4 years of American acculturation was a positive experience, only spoiled when he realised the experience excluded him for an arbitrary reason. They could feel his disappointment, and root for the underdog instead of having to parry tribal hostilities.
Secondly, he re-positioned his nemesis on the side of his cause, by revealing that a mind poisoned with racism is less free than a body that is steeled to fight it over recurring generations.
Then, after demonstrating his credentials as a high functioning elite peer through his mastery of history, oratory debating, and cultural diplomacy, Baldwin gave the Cambridge Union a realpolitik proposition they couldn't resist. If America is going to keep suppressing the rights of 1/9th of its population, a new generation descended from slaves, led by the likes of himself and MLK, are going to educate the masses to blow the place up.
Baldwin did this so skilfully, no ultimatum was spoken. He just shared his concerns. The audience applauded because they shared his concerns through the osmosis he engendered by respecting the format of their debating society, and excelling at it. As you point out, Buckley was unable to respond in kind.
I am not sure why you think the audience had tribal hostilities against him. These people were not klansmen, they were young British aristocrats whose parents were overseeing the deconstruction of an empire on the basis of the enlightened principles of the day. Baldwin was not criticizing them particularly, he was criticizing the crude upstarts from across the pond. I'm not aware of any good reason to believe they were not already rooting for Baldwin before the debate took place. But either way, these people knew very well that life was not nice for people that had been recently conquered or enslaved. He did not need to lure them into seeing that.
I believe the applause was entirely on the basis of the oratorical trouncing he gave to Buckley, who was the wrong person to be on that stage, and as a result of the fact that they were already sympathetic to his point of view. What impact would Baldwin's presentation have had on a group of British aristocrats 200 years earlier, who were making fortunes by financing slave ship voyages?
Would they have been convinced that the cruel behavior of some sheriff toward a black woman was evidence that treating Africans differently from Europeans was poisonous to their minds?
Indeed those people were not klansmen. They appreciated the oratorical trouncing for what it was, and for what it wasn't. If Baldwin had simply said, in graphic terms, how not nice life is for a black person, I don't think he could have moved them so.
My sentiments exactly. From "Nobody Knows My Name":
> Now, I talked to many Southern liberals who were doing their best to bring integration about in the South, but met scarcely a single Southerner who did not weep for the passing of the old order. They were perfectly sincere, too, and within their limits, they were right. They pointed out how Negroes and whites in the South had loved each other, they recounted to me tales of devotion and heroism which the old order had produced, and which, now, would never come again. But the old black men I looked at down there – those same black men that the Southern liberal had loved […] they were not weeping.
Probably one of the most important American philosophers of the 20th century, certainly one of our clearest voices on race and justice and love and change
If you've had your fill of James Baldwin and are looking for more, similarly compassionate but impactful philosophical writings on race and justice, Cornel West is an excellent name to follow Baldwin up with.
> In the wake of recent episodes of police brutality targeting Black people and the growing coalition around Black Lives Matter protests across the United States,
What does HN think about Roland Fryer's research on this issue?
TLDR: NY Times sensationalized Fryer's paper. Subsequent peer review was very critical of Fryer's data gathering, which led to an incorrect conclusion.
I saw Baldwin on the street in New York many years ago. He was walking around in the area between Union Square and Washington Square Park with his nanny, his kid, his dogs, and his very pregnant wife. He was yelling at his nanny, and getting pretty nasty about it.
I was very confused when i read your comment but got a good laugh from the picture. It's kinda crazy that Baldwin conjures up that family instead of the author for so many Americans.
that's ok, I've been upset with James Baldwin ever since he failed to follow up his best selling pop hit Laid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0trh9Y598fM with something equally catchy.
In this 1965 appearance at Cambridge University, he mesmerises the audience by telling them what it's like to grow up black in America not even knowing you're black, until one day, as a young child, you catch yourself in the mirror and realise you aren't the person your culture is built for. You actually don't exist, because there is no space in your culture's stories for you.
What brings the predominantly white male audience at Cambridge Union to their feet for a standing ovation, beyond Baldwin's faultless elocution, is his mastery of white American experience. He speaks about racism from inside out, considering that what has happened to white Americans who have succumbed to the disease of racism is worse than what has happened to black Americans who suffer it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tek9h3a5wQ