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4.61 AVERAGE
4.61 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
There is something so poetic and simultaneously devastating about how relevant this text is 22 years on.
The themes are just as relevant, now as in Baldwin's time and while we navigate the world without his presence, how grateful I am that he put pen to paper and imparted his wisdom as a gift before he left.
The themes are just as relevant, now as in Baldwin's time and while we navigate the world without his presence, how grateful I am that he put pen to paper and imparted his wisdom as a gift before he left.
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I read this many years ago, but I love James Baldwin, and I love teaching Baldwin, so it was time for a reread. His initial letter to his nephew is so poignant, wondering, have you ever loved someone for that long? From infancy, through childhood and adolescence, into adulthood? Developed that specific skill set to recognize all the face behind the one they wear now? With Baldwin, all is nuance; the gradient of “innocence” insisted upon by whiteness, and that while the majority of people are not all people, the conditions of his nephew’s birth were not so far removed from the conditions of his grandmother, of Dickens. “Here you were, to be loved; to be loved, […] at once, and forever, to strengthen you against a loveless world… we were trembling; we are still trembling yet. But if we had not loved each other, none of us would have survived.” The way in which he introduces the insidiousness and domination imposed, with such intent, by white supremacy, to dehumanize Black people is stark and unadorned: “You were not expected to aspire to excellence; you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.” And yet, despite having to forcibly participate in society engineered to engender self-hatred, Baldwin asks that James love them, to consider that they do not understand their history and because of this have not yet been delivered from it (even though the ignorance is self-imposed). To ask for understanding of the ignorance of the oppressor is a big ask, but one can understand and hold their object to account unfalteringly, and Baldwin does this by saying, “People find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger… if the word integration means anything, it means this: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are.”
In detailing his journey to and from the pulpit, I love how Baldwin invokes Dostoyevsky as being the fatal driver from the church. He describes it feeling like a crime, his attempt from the pulpit to reconcile his Blackness, the Blackness of his congregation, with a book written by dead white men that, too, deemed them slaves, while the other preachers were made fat by the lucrative nature of their calling. “I began to realize that the vision people hold of the world is to come is but a predictable, wishful distortion of the world in which they live.”
This lead him to an exploration of the nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X. His descriptions thereof, while much more appealing to him than the contradictions of race inherent for him in Christianity, are also an unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation; Baldwin’s own intense critique of whiteness yet resists Muhammad’s assertion of white men being the white devil, their intention to be so, and their undeniable evil through all time. Baldwin fully acknowledges that once the Black man realizes his mistreatment by white people is not related to anything he has done, but is purely gratuitous, it is fully logical for him to see them as the white devil; there is hardly yet language, he writes, to describe what the Black man has been forced to suffer. And yet, Baldwin says, I love a few people, who love me, and some of them are white (even if history denotes them as aberrations). Isn’t that more important?
The nuance of that love amid the long arm of abuse and atrocity that Black people have been subjected to, and to hold that with his critique of whiteness as institution is one of the most poignant, powerful things about Baldwin and his voice as a writer. He unequivocally condemns the subjugation, and attempts by white supremacy to destroy Black people as a moral, social, spiritual failing, and still insists that any attempt to destroy a group of people based on racial characteristic, such as the attempt by Nazi Germany, or even the vengeance of Black folks against their oppressor, is the same evil. Baldwin believes in accountability, responsibility, acknowledgement, and in the pursuit of the repair of harm, not reciprocal eradication.
I marvel at the depth of heart of those among us made to suffer most. Baldwin must be required reading for everyone, if the future he willed and worked so hard to reveal can ever be within our grasp.
i have so many thoughts i don't even know where to start.. this book was published over 60 years ago, on a wholly different continent from mine, by a person that couldn't be more different from me in many ways, yet i felt so connected to james baldwin as i was reading this, my eyes glued to the page and just taking everything in deeply. of course we all know, james' way with words is nothing short of brilliance, i have watched many interviews of his and you could almost say that the fire next time is written in a way that feels very oratory, like this could be one very long letter or speech read aloud, while reading i could hear his voice in my head narrating this instead of me reading.
regarding the contents of the book, it's almost scary how relevant the very topics discussed by james 60+ years ago are nowadays in 2025, not only in america but all across the world. this is one of those books everyone should read at least once in their lives, white people most of all of course. it's a short but striking, eloquent, enlightening, important read and i always kept in the back of my mind that 60 years have passed since this was written because it really could have been written 10 years ago, or one or yesterday. the topics very much hold up and even though many many people came after james who continued to fight for the rights of african american people, i think he still describes his ideas in such a perfect way that i'd 100% recommend to read this for yourself with your own eyes.
regarding the contents of the book, it's almost scary how relevant the very topics discussed by james 60+ years ago are nowadays in 2025, not only in america but all across the world. this is one of those books everyone should read at least once in their lives, white people most of all of course. it's a short but striking, eloquent, enlightening, important read and i always kept in the back of my mind that 60 years have passed since this was written because it really could have been written 10 years ago, or one or yesterday. the topics very much hold up and even though many many people came after james who continued to fight for the rights of african american people, i think he still describes his ideas in such a perfect way that i'd 100% recommend to read this for yourself with your own eyes.
reflective
I'm still not in the habit of rating non-fiction, but I think everyone should read this. Poignant and still very relevant.
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
I never knew what it was like to be robbed until I realized that I have lived too long without reading a James Baldwin book. This was just beautifully written and really got my brain gears moving.
First Baldwin read. Need to get my hands on all of his works, what a prolific man. The kind of book one needs to reread every year and take the time to digest it, talk about it, think about it. Act on it.