James Arthur Baldwin
It's almost impossible to find a free thinking mind. Especially in todays media bombarded society. Everyone is acting like someone else. Saying what someone else has said. Thinking like someone else is thinking. James Baldwin was a thinker a man of great dignity, wisdom, and intelligence. James Baldwin seemed to deal primarily with identity. Who are we? Who am I? Who are you and where do we fit in this society? Furthermore, where does this society fit globally. A great writer way before his time.
It seems to me that our community doesn't have a James Baldwin. Similarly to the lack of a Malcolm X. We've been so brainwashed that free thinking doesn't seem to exist. We think as Martin Luther King Jr. thinks. We fail to challenge his methods and ideology. I don't see why we haven't it didn't work. While Baldwin agreed with MLK and Malcolm X on some of their ideologies he also employed his own. He also thought for himself in a time where people where being followers. As evident by no emergence of a leader since MLK and Malcolm X. Get Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson out of here. They're puppets merely white liberal pawns.
He was a man that used his pen skillfully to put into perspective the plight of the black man in this nation. It's a shame that most people don't know about him. It's probably because "The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions." That's from him. He challenged the status quo he questioned the information he was being fed. He questioned everything that the country that has constantly oppressed his people forced upon him. That's also why they wouldn't let him speak at the Circus in Washington...I mean the March on Washington. As Malcolm X said referring to the reason why James Baldwin didn't speak at the March on Washington "Baldwin was liable to say anything. They couldn't get him to follow the script." He was a man no one could buy his endorsement.
Works by James Baldwin:
-Nobody Knows My Name
-Another Country
-Just Above My Head
-Tell Me How Long the Trains Been Gone
I myself haven't read that much Baldwin but what I have read is so beautiful and so astoundingly poignant it hurts my heart that more people don't know about the man and like Malcolm X didn't take heed to what he was telling us.
It seems to me that our community doesn't have a James Baldwin. Similarly to the lack of a Malcolm X. We've been so brainwashed that free thinking doesn't seem to exist. We think as Martin Luther King Jr. thinks. We fail to challenge his methods and ideology. I don't see why we haven't it didn't work. While Baldwin agreed with MLK and Malcolm X on some of their ideologies he also employed his own. He also thought for himself in a time where people where being followers. As evident by no emergence of a leader since MLK and Malcolm X. Get Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson out of here. They're puppets merely white liberal pawns.
He was a man that used his pen skillfully to put into perspective the plight of the black man in this nation. It's a shame that most people don't know about him. It's probably because "The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions." That's from him. He challenged the status quo he questioned the information he was being fed. He questioned everything that the country that has constantly oppressed his people forced upon him. That's also why they wouldn't let him speak at the Circus in Washington...I mean the March on Washington. As Malcolm X said referring to the reason why James Baldwin didn't speak at the March on Washington "Baldwin was liable to say anything. They couldn't get him to follow the script." He was a man no one could buy his endorsement.
Works by James Baldwin:
-Nobody Knows My Name
-Another Country
-Just Above My Head
-Tell Me How Long the Trains Been Gone
I myself haven't read that much Baldwin but what I have read is so beautiful and so astoundingly poignant it hurts my heart that more people don't know about the man and like Malcolm X didn't take heed to what he was telling us.
Comments
Post a Comment