Nobody Knows My Name....

As is quite clear in the more than two months since the senseless murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, there’s something going on in the soul of our country that’s prompting a level of discord and dissent unlike anything we’ve seen in a half-century.

As literally millions take to the streets of our cities and those around the world to demand a more inclusive, equitable and just society, I’m hopeful: as the continuing contretemps in Portland has shown us, it’s not just African-American supporters of Black Lives Matter out there protesting, but the Wall of Moms and the Wall of Vets and the Leaf Blowers Against Fascism, too. In other words, for the first time in a very long time – and possibly ever – it’s a veritable rainbow coalition of Americans who believe that we need to overcome the insidiousness of race (and the other -isms) in our country. Apparently, times have truly changed.…

While it’s still early in this fight and substantive and/or systemic changes are few, it’s heartening to see so many people – and specifically white people – join the cause. And many more, particularly in the business world, have become aware of their own lack of awareness and have sought to learn more about the often very different realities that their Black colleagues, friends, neighbors and even family members experience daily in our country. In this spirit of seeking to understand, then, I offer the opportunity to explore the life and work of the great James Baldwin, who would’ve turned 96 just yesterday.

There are two primary reasons that I’m recommending that you consider Baldwin fully and carefully: first, because he is one of the greatest-ever writers, period, and his gift for communicating via the written and spoken word is among the greatest in history; and, second, because so much of what he wrote and said, now 4 to 6 decades ago, is still so trenchant and germane. Simply put, in what is surely an indictment of us as a society, virtually all of what James Baldwin showed us about ourselves is just as relevant today; sometimes when reading him, one forgets that his incision with respect to our present was actually written so long ago in our past.…

Among the things that’ve made Baldwin so unique in our history is that he was gifted at both fiction and nonfiction. Though I’m particularly a devotee and fan of the latter, I’m edified by friends and others who esteem his contributions to the former. In other words, he was a great writer, period, and, like few if any before or since, transcended genre.

But be warned: he was also committed to The Truth as he saw and experienced it, so his writing is often searing, and, because of this, wounding. He wrote what he felt, so, as Prof. Eddie S. Glaude has observed in his exceptional and best-selling new book Begin Again, “To bear witness in the after times is hard on the soul.” Baldwin’s witness reflects the profound cost of his experience then, which is shared by so many of us (even) now.…

I’ll suggest that you start with the volume of his Collected Essays from the Library of America series (edited by none other than the late, great Toni Morrison). In it, you’ll find most of his major nonfiction works including Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street and The Devil Finds Work, along with a couple dozen other essays. It’s literally his nonfiction greatest hits, volume 1.

Next, check out The Cross of Redemption, a volume of “Uncollected Writings” edited by Randall Kenan. In it, you’ll find some of his lesser-known but ever-trenchant and most incisive literary and social commentary.

Finally, I encourage you to explore his videography, including his fiery, frenetic and illuminating speech and debate at Oxford with William Buckley (chronicled in print in a revelatory way in Nicholas Buccola’s fascinating book The Fire Is Upon Us) and several documentaries about his work including Raoul Peck’s recent, award-winning I Am Not Your Negro, the lesser known PBS gem from 1963 entitled Take This Hammer and one that originally debuted just two years after his death in 1987, The Price of the Ticket, among others. As you experience the incredible power of his oratory, thereafter, it’ll likely be hard to consider him just a writer. To me, and every year more indelibly, he is a singularly evocative and expressive force of nature.

And what do I hope you’ll learn from your exploration?

In a word, everything.

You’ll learn of what it was like to be Black in the mid-20th century, which, sadly as today’s protests demonstrate, is not that different from African-American life in the early 21st-century.

You’ll learn of how terribly painful it was to be both Black and gay in a time when the former was to be dehumanized and the latter was to be reviled, though thankfully some meaningful lessening of the stigma with respect to sexual orientation has occurred since.

You’ll learn of the source of so much of the pain-turned-to-anger of The Dispossessed, a condition considered mystifying to (too) many who’ve been blissfully insulated from such an experience by their Privilege.

And you’ll learn of how heavy the burden of being The Other in our society truly is, and if this doesn’t spur you to fight for greater recognition and celebration of the humanity of all, I don’t know what will.

In sum, you’ll learn about the history of our country, both past and present, and how very different the experience of it is because of race in our society. Further, I suspect, you’ll learn that despite some demonstrable progress – like a formerly-burgeoning Black middle-class and the rise of the Black political class, including the ascension of its most outstanding member to the presidency of our country – there is still in the bowels of our union a commitment to structures that limit if not prevent the full inclusion of African-Americans in our polity, which is what the now global Movement for Black Lives is all about.

Finally, if you study his life and work in earnest, I can promise you another abundant and eternal fruit of your exploration of James Baldwin: you will never, ever, take the experience of The Other in our society for granted again. In a word, you’ll certainly be ‘woke,’ as it’s impossible to sleep on or through Baldwin.

What you choose to do with this heightened consciousness is up to you, but I implore you to leverage it into joining us in the fight to make our gloriously diverse society and world ever more inclusive of and equitable for all.

The price of the ticket is simply the commitment to evidencing our humanity fully and supportively always and to all. And on that day, truly, the devil will find no work, and everybody will know each other’s names.

Isn’t this a world that you’d rather live in? If so, it’s up to us to begin again….

(Photo credits: https://wist.info/baldwin-james/39310/; https://twitter.com/MoveOn/status/998559042451722240/photo/1; https://dakrolak.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/james-baldwin-graffiti-dc-meme-quote-street-art/; https://www.azquotes.com/quote/16402; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575725/begin-again-by-eddie-s-glaude-jr/; https://www.loa.org/books/121-collected-essays; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/7754/the-cross-of-redemption-by-james-baldwin-edited-with-an-introduction-by-randall-kenan/; https://steemit.com/jamesbaldwin/@sunnysandhu/artist-is-here-to-disturb-the-peace-james-baldwin; https://www.facebook.com/PositiveActionH/photos/a.10150154323190314/10162954345195314/; https://theafrodisia.blogspot.com/2019/02/james-baldwin-quote.html; https://libquotes.com/james-baldwin/quote/lbm2j7x; https://thequotes.in/love-takes-off-masks-that-we-fear-we-cannot-live-without-and-know-we-cannot-live-within-james-baldwin/; https://whitesforracialequity.org/james-baldwin/)