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ROBERT COLES
was a very shrewd young man indeed, bright and forthright, nobody's
coward.)
To solve our national problem of racial tensions we must think
clearly and plan soundly because we are in a delicate moment, when
the anger of many Negroes is naked and the sorrows and guilts of whites
more exposed. For Mr. Baldwin, regardless of
what
we say or try to do,
Western civilization seems suspect and faltering. H e allows the Negro
scant susceptibility to the many problems which afflict whites-of iden–
tity, of religion, of survival, of intimacy and sexuality. The Negro is an
outcast, plundered so long that his fate becomes an almost total historical
judgment upon the white, Western world, a world which, according to
Mr. Baldwin, knows very little about itself, because as he points out, it
cannot understand the Negro. Yet, apparently the Negro can under–
stand the white man, and can save
him
from his impending doom. The
Negro, having given love to inadequate whites, is the crucial factor in
finally enabling the white man to solve his problems of identity. There
is a cynical medical and psychiatric core in me which must reject such
an argument. The problems of "identity" and sexuality are simply too
complicated for rhetoric of Baldwin's kind.
In short, Mr. Baldwin may have cornered himself into a dilemma
not unprecedented. He tends strongly at times toward portraying the
Negro as a kind of "natural man," an outsider, persecuted and un–
tainted by the white market place. He alone, or perhaps with the gallant
help of Mr. Norman Mailer's "white Negro," can save us from its com–
mercial toxins. But it is for this same "natural man" that Mr. Baldwin
wants civil rights. We are told he went to Oxford, Mississippi, at Robert
Kennedy's urging to persuade James Meredith to stay in the very kind
of situation which he has deplored as a mockery.
If
the Negro joins the
American dream, will he not also suffer its nightmares?
This dilemma-of demanding acceptance by a country simultaneous–
ly denounced as almost worthless-is more of Baldwin's fancy than fact,
a result of romanticized notions which in themselves are part of the
problem of racial unreason as it plagues the educated and the gifted.
We hear sweeping, categorical and conflicting generalizations, based
upon partial visions or deliberately unqualified ones. Then we are given
further generalizations, now remedial ones, in hasty conclusion: love is
the answer; though hate is everywhere, and power the only real objec–
tive in a barely acknowledged war. After such talk where are we, who
are we, and in heaven's name, what do we do?
We might begin by remembering how difficult it is even for people
who know one another well to love and trust one another. Understanding,
