It should come as surprise to no one remotely familiar with me that James Baldwin is one of my favorite authors, and there are many from Rod Serling, to Samuel Clemens, to Ralph Ellison, to Nathaniel Hawthorne, to Edgar Allen Poe, to Arthur C. Clarke, to Aldous Huxley, to Langston Hughes, to Dostoyevsky…the list is extensive.
James Baldwin: The Fire Next Time
Baldwin often wrote about the illusion of Amerikan innocence. In his book The Fire Next Time, written just before my birth, he warned that if Amerika failed to reckon with its racial history, it would face destruction—not from outside forces, but from within. He wrote:
“It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.”
Today, another of my favorite authors and a man that I refer to as “Sensei” wrote a compelling piece in his Hartmann Report titled “The Broken Man Who’s Breaking America.” The article takes a unique view of the “Smitty” Trump presidency from the eyes of both a historian and psychotherapist, which Hartmann is (among other things). A fascinating perspective that merits a thorough perusal.
However, upon reading the article I must admit to wincing and chafing a wee bit. My umbrage was resultant of the inference that Amerika was ever whole. In it’s “Civil War” (though it is in a constant state of civil war) three-quarters of a million people died fighting it. That is more than WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and every other clandestine or covert conflict combined. Think about that and, most importantly, think about the malignant cancer that caused it.
I was so charged by the article that I commented on it because, as a Black Man in the United States, I live in a sociopolitical stasis that ignores my existence. A stasis that always talks around, below and above me (good luck with the above tactic). Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. It is something that cannot be explained to “others.”
In any event my comment was as follows: There are those of US within the "US" that have had long standing experiences different from "others” and WE have known that Amerika has been broken since its inception. Smitty did not "break" it, he is but one of its fragments on the floor. It was only after several hours that I realized that Brother Baldwin had come to haunt me.
Baldwin saw the “brokenness” not as a recent development, but as something baked into the American project from the beginning—especially in how it treated Black people. His open letter to Angela Davis in 1970 echoed this, comparing her imprisonment to the chains of slavery and warning that silence in the face of injustice was “not only criminal but suicidal.” Amerikan Palestine.
Angela Davis
I have had the distinct pleasure, and awesome honor, of meeting Professor Davis on several occasions. Angela Davis has long argued that the systems of policing, incarceration, and capitalism are not broken—they’re functioning exactly as designed. The U.S. doesn’t need reform; it needs transformation. The roots of apartheidist racism run deep, they are the root of the national tree. “Smitty” Trump is not an anomaly, not by a damned sight. Smitty is a predictable and manufactured product of a system built on exploitation.
I soundly reject the idea that Smitty Trump—or any one person—“broke” Amerika. Instead, I point to:
Historical continuity of racial injustice
Systemic oppression masked as democracy
The danger of forgetting or ignoring the past
Don’t be shocked by the cracks—they’ve always been there. What is required is not nostalgia for a “better” past, but the courage to imagine and build something radically different. So far, land of the tree (as in magnolia), home of the slave. And the coward. Because, you see, the true slave desireth not freedom, the true slave desires a slave to call his own.
Now you may go smoke a joint.
I love everything you say, because it is TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!!! Please keep telling the truth. I always share your post on all of my social media accounts to reach as many people possible.
White supremacy is kinda like doing laundry, separate colors & whites, rinse and repeat! ~ until desired wash is achieved!