Kevin Costain
Written on Jun 25, 2020
I loved this book.
There is no pulling of punches in Baldwin’s prose: “You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason.”
How does he say to handle his countrymen? “You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”
Baldwin’s writing is, as ever, beautiful and moving here. He brings you into his Harlem and Doesn’t let you stay clean. The truths here are just as prescient now as they were then.
“To accept one’s past—one’s history—is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it.”
What’s so profound is that much of this could be written today. So much of Baldwin’s struggles still exist in many of the same ways. His descriptions of political events and how these ideas come together help one understand things of their time. Things we look back on as isolated events now were not as isolated then. As the years pass, it’s these reference points I think we all lose when struggles arise.
“I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering—enough is certainly as good as a feast—but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.”