James Baldwin – E367: Writing and Diversity

Class, Wed, 9/25

James Baldwin, Cambridge Union, 1965

Fastwrite

Does Baldwin actually manage to speak across the color line? What do you think? To what degree does he seemed trapped in the American dichotomy of black vs. white? To what degree (and where, and when? ) is he able to escape or transcend that binary?

James Balswin, Cambridge Union, UK, 1985

The Opening: One and I and You

Minutes 14:00–22:00

Amanda and Sarah (15:30)
Michael (15:30): Contrast with Anzaldua
Kate (18:00)

The Conclusion: The West (We?)

To Do

Wed, 9/25, 4:00 pm: Group C posts responses to Barack Obama’s ” A More Perfect Union”. I’d like to ask the same question of President Obama as of James Baldwin: Does he (and, if so, how) cross the lines of division that mark our society? Does he articulate a view of a “union”, or simply of a faction in that union?
Thurs, 9/26, 4:00 pm: Everyone else reads Group C’s responses and posts comments on at least two.
Fri, 9/27, NO CLASS, but . . . during class time (approx.), please post at least one “response to a response”. That is, if you are a member of Group C, respond to the comments on your post. If you are a member of Group A or B, respond to one of the other comments on a post you responded to.
Mon. 9/30, class: Read Deborah Brandt’s “Sponsors of Literacy”. I’ll lead our discussion (or try to). I’m interested in thinking about how the various “sponsors” of literacy may hinder as well as help our attempts to talk across groups.

Keeping Your Attention

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/ )

Decades of the Same Issue: Can it be Resolved?

After viewing this debate, it does not shock me that James Baldwin successfully won the debate, “Is the American dream at the expense of the American Nigro?” Baldwin was able to eloquently describe his points that were, especially at the time, controversial topics of race to a room of around six hundred white men. His stature and confidence in his presentation was impressive. His argument was that in order to understand how the American dream hinders the American Nigro, perspective of an individual can greatly affect how the question is answered. If someone does not have experience from the perspective of an African American, then it becomes extremely difficult to understand the setbacks that are present. Baldwin states:

“The reaction to that question has to depend on an affect, an affect on where you find yourself in the world. What your sense of reality is, what your system of reality is. That is, it depends on assumptions which we hold so deeply as to be scarcely aware of them.”

This is a significant point in his argument because it allows him to next explain the American dream in the eyes of an Africans American man. By emphasizing that there truly is a gap that divides black and white peoples’ experience, Baldwin captures the audience’s attention, an effective transition in his setting.

Baldwin explains to the audience that as a child, African Americans are raised thinking that they are white, truly equal, until about the age 8. Reality turns the world upside down, and by the age of 30 nothing has changed, despite all the efforts. The idea of being raised to value a society that does not value you is incredibly difficult to comprehend. Today, most people are told to make a name for themselves, to make a space in society that is significant to them. It is staggering that this notion is still applicable today. The effort of true equality can only start on an individual level, and across every household and in every group. The only way to change the outlook on groups of minority is to change the way we teach about them. As Baldwin suggests, history and the way it is taught must be made more diverse.