Baldwin’s Quote

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one’s work.” — James Baldwin

Statement

I don’t want to be in a rage. It is not healthy, Jimmy Baldwin, not good. I can’t leave this country or perhaps I can. But where am I to go? The hate of here is everywhere. It is like hand sanitizer but it does not clean.

I can say I have traveled. Lived. Set my bags down for long spells. I have had a chance to sniff the air, sweat on roads, eat local grub, though I have never been to the following states: The Dakotas. Idaho. Montana. Oregon, Iowa. Utah. Alaska. Hawaii. Nevada. Forty American states I have visited or passed through in some manner. I am an American. I am African American. I am Black.

When did I experience my first moment where I knew I was being treated differently because I was African American (Black)/Other?

I was 11 years old. I was at sleep-away camp. Our counselors took us to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. We went into some store and the shopkeeper instantly began accusing us, a few Black kids, of stealing. I told him I had money. I showed him my money. He didn’t care. He threw us out of his store. White people kept shopping. Every time I have visited Rehoboth Beach since then, I think about that moment. Rehoboth is still one of my favorite beaches.

How do I feel about the actual quote by Baldwin?

I understand what Jimmy Baldwin was trying to say. He is correct. He was correct in 1961 and he is correct in 2022. I do feel a sense of rage at times and I am not an Afro-pessimist. In fact, I outright reject that idea. I am an optimist. It fits with my other belief in that walking around in rage is destructive to the mind and body. I won’t do it. I won’t allow myself to be imprisoned by rage and consumed by it. Maybe being an optimist on the future of world progress is why.

I am not an optimist like Barack Obama either who bases his optimism mostly on his relationship to America. I am an optimist based upon my position as a human being and my relationship to many other Americans, Asians, Latinx, Europeans, other people from and across the African diaspora, and the world family.

Despite the gravity of the terrible things humans do daily, we are becoming better. The colonized have awakened from their slumber and are going to rebuild the world in a better way for sustainable life. Millions of human beings around the globe are digging deeper and it is usually not the people who you see on the cover of western magazines.

As for Baldwin’s rage, African Americans owe little to America. America, the country, the organized corporation, owes African Americans. Yet, slowly we will likely have to accept that the debt will never be paid (how can it be paid — it is not just a question of money but things that cannot be replaced) in exchange for self-determination. It won’t be a deal or anything but it will happen. America is in a kind of death spiral. It is going to undergo a transformation in the 21st century that will also transform the world. It is going to have to learn to be not the top dog. That is tough. But that could be a good thing.

That is also why I am not in rage. That will be a good thing, whatever happens. The country should be preparing for that moment. But it isn’t. America keeps electing leaders who lie about what is happening. Americans want to hear the lie. It is like if both your parents lost their jobs and careers and know they have to sell the house and move and buy a new house and live differently but still a good life. You, the child, refuse this arrangement and ask for new parents instead.

America has been doing this for decades now. Like Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men —

“I want the truth!!”

“You can’t handle the truth.”

That is America.

Consider this a prompt. Feel free to answer the above questions yourself. Tag me if you do. One Love.

Deesha Philyaw Derrick Weston Brown Herbert Dyer, Jr. Johnny Silvercloud SF Ali Ajah Hales Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II Marlon Weems EP McKnight, MEd L.A. Justice Allison Gaines Hal H. Harris Kelsey Ogbewe Arturo Dominguez