James Baldwin on Black Lives Matter

artist: @reynanoriega_

I am sure that every single person who comes across this post is aware of the recent senseless killing of George Floyd. I remember the moment I came across the video. I was sick to my stomach. I felt frustrated and helpless as I watched an innocent man get murdered, hearing the pleas of those surrounding the scene, but seeing the indifference in the faces that are meant to protect us.

In my discomfort, grief, and feelings of helplessness, I remembered James Baldwin.

I recently wrote a paper on a letter to his nephew in "The Fire Next Time". The content of this letter from 1963 is eerily relatable now in 2020, of police brutality and systematic anti-blackness.

I remember feeling strength and lightness in his writings, and write this post as a way to continue to convey his message. I will be providing quotes from his letter to his nephew, a letter which I find serves as an open letter concerning systemic racism, hoping to bring light to the stagnant nature of this injustice, and hopefully also provide a surge of strength.

'You were born where you were born and faced the future that 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. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.'

Institutional racism, meaning racism which is rooted in social and political institutions, was intentionally implemented as a way to ensure the social inferiority of black people. Black people have thus been thrust into a system which functions off their limitation of opportunity and flourishing.

Simply put, our economic and political structures were built in a way which makes clear: black people are systematically forced to be mediocre at best. They were then expected by white authority figures to understand this as black inferiority, a genetic curse of subservience, rather than a social construction based off hatred.

This is why we cannot say that for black people to overcome this extreme discrimination that they only need to 'work hard' and 'stop being lazy'. Because the fact of the matter is, our social, economic, and political climates are systematically built to disallow black people from achieving.

'The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.'

We believed the lies of white supremacy. We, as in everybody: white people, black people, non-black people of color. However, I believe that these are not messages of genuine belief in a genetic inferiority. Rather, I have understood this issue of racial scapegoating as a matter of blind hatred.

I do not believe everybody who expresses racist sentiments is hateful to their roots, but conditioned to believe in a false hierarchy. Baldwin expresses his place in the anti-black climate in the 1960s with an emphasis on love. He lovingly calls for his nephew and everybody reading this work to recognize the true extent of their worth, rather than what they have been told.

'There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. 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.'

Baldwin empathetically recognizes the crumbling foundation of systemic racism; he emphasizes that there is no excuse. However, to return their baseless hatred means we submit to the inherent division of black people and white people. I believe the context of Baldwin's words in this present tragedy calls for white and non-black POC allies to include this 'terrible thing' in our activism; we need to fully love + accept those who senselessly hate.

We are not morally superior. We simply see and understand the harmful implications of America's past, and unfortunately, many people simply do not understand it. But this does not make us 'better' than these people.

We do not grow up hating people based on their skin-- we are taught to do this. Those who are apathetic or support white supremacy are caught in a hateful history which they have have not been released from.

I, as a non-black POC, will never understand the full extent of fear and helplessness my black brothers and sisters feel on a daily basis. But as an ally, I believe we need to do our best not to further divide, but to educate and lead through a love and acceptance which seems absent in these discussions. Let's make 'love the root of our resistance.'

'They have had to believe 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.'

People, especially in the age of social media, have the choice to make their own opinions regarding white supremacy. But, people are mistaking the lack of overt (obvious) racism as anti-racism. Covert (socially acceptable forms of) racism exists in the foundations of our social, political, and economic institutions, and everybody has either harbored a form of it at some point in their lives or seen it first hand.

This includes white silence, eurocentric curriculum, and 'colorblindness'. These are all instances of what Baldwin describes as knowing better, but not acting on it. He makes it a point to understand the white man's point of view and while he does not validate and condone hatred on his people, he makes it a point to blame the system, and not the people trapped in its false notions of hatred.

'Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. [...] And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. [...] The country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free.'

Let us not direct endless spouts of hatred towards those who do not understand the systemic disadvantages of black people, but work towards re-imagining the structure of our justice systems and political/social/economic systems in a way which would truly legitimize the phrase 'all lives matter' and make racial equality deeper than a baseless legislative solution. We cannot just change laws.

'We cannot be free until they are free.'

'We cannot be free until they are free.'

'We cannot be free until they are free.'

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

'Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, and for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and the needy.'

Proverbs 31:8-9