I hate watching videos.
Anything longer than a ten-minute Youtube video rapidly loses my attention and never regains it. Due to this, as I am sure you can imagine, I was not exactly thrilled when I learned I had to respond to an hour-long video. Despite my initial apprehension, I tried my best to focus on the debate. Thankfully, this proved to be much easier than I assumed it would be.
My willingness to pay attention to James Baldwin’s speech is probably due to a variety factors. For example, he speaks eloquently and clearly in a way which demands attention. However, what I find to be most compelling is Baldwin’s frequent use of the second person.
Using the word “you” is a complex choice few writers choose to make. This is due to the power of the word. The omission of “you” allows for the audience to distance themselves from the content provided. It is easy to pretend the speaker is talking to the person next to you instead. In the beginning of his speech, Baldwin allows this to happen, as he starts his speech using the more academic “one” instead of “you.” Baldwin distances the audience by saying, “I feel has to do with one’s point of view. I have to put it that way – one’s sense, one’s system of reality.” (15:23-15:32). This way, he is able to start to gain the respect from his audience without spooking them right away.
This is a more comfortable way to live, always pretending like you have nothing to do with the content. However, in using “you,” the author (or speaker, in this case), forces the audience to live through the content.
Baldwin does not allow for a single audience member to escape the narrative he weaves. When he says “you” he means everyone listening. This is prevalent later on in the speech. Though it is impossible to live through the racism experienced by people of color as a white person, Baldwin does his best to put you in his shoes.
“This means, in the case of an American Negro, born in that glittering republic, and the moment you are born, since you don’t know any better, every stick and stone and every face is white.And since you have not yet seen a mirror, you suppose that you are, too. 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. It comes as a great shock to discover that the country which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity, has not, in its whole system of reality, evolved any place for you. The disaffection, the demoralization, and the gap between one person and another only on the basis of the color of their skin, begins there and accelerates – accelerates throughout a whole lifetime – to the present when you realize you’re thirty and are having a terrible time managing to trust your countrymen”
(18:21-19:45).
The other positive (or danger, depending upon the person you ask) of using “you” is the type of sentences it forms. When Baldwin uses the word, he is not asking you to think about his content. Instead, he is demanding that you do so. By using “you” Baldwin forces the audience to listen, as he is the one in charge of its collective fates. This choice makes the audience into characters in his story, forcing the audience to feel the speech instead of just listening to Baldwin speak.
So despite all of the issues stacked against Baldwin, in the past and present, he is able to methodically involve the audience through his use of “you” within his speech. This leads to an effective and memorable argument. Though his argument is clean, logical, and passionate, it is his use of “you” that takes this speech to a new level.
(For the sake of quoting, I used a transcript of Baldwin’s speech which can be found here: https://www.rimaregas.com/2015/06/07/transcript-james-baldwin-debates-william-f-buckley-1965-blog42/ )
E367: Writing and Diversity 
Kate,
I love how you began your response with a quick personal comment, it really helped to draw me into what you had to say.
I also love how you focused your efforts into highlighting the fact that Baldwin utilizes the word “you” when talking to the crowd, holding them accountable and making them pay attention and feel everything he is saying to them on a more personal level.
For black people in America and all over the world, talking about racism can be extremely difficult. There are going to be people who in response will outwardly deny that it is or has occurred, will diminish their stories and act as though it isn’t/wasn’t that big of a deal, or will blame their suffering on them (which is something that Buckley does in this speech, saying that black people were basically creating their own problems and then doing nothing about it except blaming white people).
The fact that Baldwin composed himself in a way that took the audience by surprise and resulted in a standing ovation, one that Cambridge has never seen before, made me so incredibly happy. Seeing him speak out for people who, at the time, could not do the same, brought me so much joy.
The thing about diversity and issues surrounding it is that it begins with speaking up and speaking out about these issues, something that can be so terrifying and sometimes life threatening. Baldwin did an excellent job at facing these issues and the people on the other side with a graceful force, utilizing the word “you” to make his argument all the more personal and intimidating.
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Kate,
I agree that an hour-long video was daunting to think about analyzing, but as the debate started I found myself immediately absorbed in what they were saying. I was actually surprised when the video ended because it didn’t feel like an hour. I liked your analysis because you talked more about how Baldwin delivered his argument, and why this made his argument so successful. Even if you have all the facts to back up your argument, delivery is a crucial element in any debate. The way he decided to switch between using “one” and “you” was very effective in gaining the audience’s attention and approval, as shown through the standing ovation that he received at the end of his argument. Baldwin was able to connect with the audience when Buckley could not. There’s no denying that Buckley felt ease in debating, the way he was standing and addressing the audience, made him appear confident. However, he didn’t manage to impact the audience as much as Baldwin did, one of the reasons could be because he didn’t feel the need to use words like “you,” which didn’t allow the audience to “live through the content,” like you said.
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Kate,
Your post was very interesting and not only though-provoking, but it also pointed out aspects I had initially missed. For example, I didn’t even realize how his usage of the word “one” instead of “you” was intentionally and was supposed to gain respect from the audience. I wonder why he used this technique; is it possible that he used it because he felt he had to gain the respect of the predominately white audience? I feel that this might be the case.
In addition, I completely agree that Baldwin changed from “one” to “you” in order to try and personalize the suffering him and African Americans have withstood. By doing this, the audience could more easily understand and feel what Baldwin was describing.
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I agree that his rhetorical strategy of using second person. It really makes his points more grounded and smaller. Its a more of a “me vs you” issue than this more national or global scale issue. It makes the issue something that was existing within that room than something existing in a large space. And these topics of white supremacy and privilege and racism can sometimes come into space that impersonal and theoretical to create a polite barrier for the white audience to feel less perverted and exposed. But, Baldwin brings these topics to them as something that deals them and him and everyone in that room. He is not saying “a white man does…” He tells the audience that “You do…” There’s a lot more introspection going on because it becomes personal.
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Kate,
This is a super-smart response which complements Amanda’s really well. I’m drawn to your interests in “the types of sentences [using ‘you’] forms”. I suspect I may want to quibble a little bit with you about who Baldwin has in mind when he’s using the second-person. I don’t think it’s quite the standard form of direct address: “Yeah, I mean you, mister!” It seems more to me a (very interestingly) different way of saying “I” or “one”. I’m hoping we’ll get to talk more about this in class.
Joe
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