James Baldwin is a goddamned prophet. Each time I read his words I’m left standing, stunned, without words. I’m not even sure how much I can understand of what he’s writing, but I what I get is something about the mess of humanity– the devastation and cruelty and beauty of people, of how we love each other and tear each other apart.
I seldom underline in my books, but I have to keep a pen in my hand when I read Baldwin because it helps me remember. There’s much in there that I need to remember. So I’m going to write some of it down here…every now and again…because over the next bunch of months I’m going to read all of his books. I can’t bear not to. I can’t afford not to.
Right now I’m reading Just Above My Head. I’ll start with something that’s pretty easy to swallow. Before we get into the shit.
I was traveling before the days of electronic surveillance, before the hijackers and the terrorists arrived. For the arrival of these people, the people in the seats of power have only themselves to blame. Who, indeed, has hijacked more than England has, for example, or who is more skilled in the uses of terror than my own unhappy country? Yes, I know: nevertheless, children, what goes around comes around, what you send out comes back to you. A terrorist is called that only because he does not have the power of the State behind him–indeed, he has no State, which is why he is a terrorist. The state, at bottom, and when the chips are down, rules by means of a terror made legal–that is how Franco ruled so long, and is the undeniable truth concerning South Africa. No one called the late J. Edgar Hoover a terrorist, though that is precisely what he was: and if anyone wishes, now, or in this context, to speak of “civilized” values or “democracy” or “morality,” you will pardon this poor nigger if he puts his hand before his mouth, and snickers–if he laughs at you. I have endured your morality for a very long time, am still crawling up out of that dungheap:all that the slave can learn from his master is how to be a slave, and that is not morality.
James Baldwin, Just Above My Head, 1978
