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strictly, or legally speaking, exist in any other" country but the United
States where "they are taught really to despise themselves from the
moment their eyes open on the world." One suspects that for Mr.
Baldwin it is sacrilege to suggest that there are Negroes outside America;
and from this there follows the implication that the Negro problem is
his
problem that can only be discussed on
his
terms. Hence too his contempt
for most people who, in the main, agree with him, especially for poor
despised American liberals. He has, as a Negro, a right, of course,
to
despise liberals, but he exploits his moral advantage too much.
Sometimes by Negro Mr. Baldwin means people with black skins
originating in Africa, but sometimes he defines them by their situation–
that of being oppressed. And indeed
if
the Negro problem is resolveable,
the only useful way of discussing it
is
to consider American Negroes in
a situation which is comparable with that of workers and of Negroes
elsewhere. To write as though Negroes do not exist anywhere except
in
America is to induce despair, to suggest that in America white and
black cannot become integrated to the (rather limited) extent to which
they have been, for example, in Brazil.
It
is
in
fact playing into the
hands of the Black Muslims whose position is that America-and the
world even- has to choose between having nothing but black or nothing
but white people-by which it is meant that it would be "democratic"
to have nothing but the black majority.
Mr. Baldwin would admit, I think, that when (and this is quite
often) he is guided by his emotions he finds himself
in
a position not
far from that of the Black Muslims. He quite rightly resents the claims
of whites that they are superior to colored people. But in fact he thinks
that the colored are superior. True, they have, like the anti-fascists,
been made, almost involuntarily, better as a result of the crimes
perpetrated against them, for which they are in no way responsible.
Few independent witnesses would dispute this. But Mr. Baldwin also
makes Henry-'Miller-like generalizations about the emasculation, joy–
lessness, lack of sensuality, etc., of white Americans to prove their
inferiority to the joyous, spiritual, good, warm Negroes.
I agree that in certain ways, and not only in America, the so-called
backward, primitive, oppressed, and-for the most part--colored people
are "better" than us whites who form a world class of "haves" and
rulers. The quality of this superiority James Baldwin admirably conveys
by the word
sensual:
"To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice
in
the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does,
from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread." Negroes-and one
might add (although Mr. Baldwin does not do so) a large number of
