jacobinreads 's review for:

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

5.0

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James Baldwin, goddamn. I read this with my jaw intermittently clenched and wide open. In Going to Meet the Man, James Baldwin perfectly employs pain and exquisitely captures joy, sorrow, violence, and desire; each terrible facet is used to meditate on the experience of racism: that of the oppressor and the oppressed. I found the experience enthralling but deeply uncomfortable; I couldn't look away, and Baldwin's writing forced itself upon me: it held my eyes open and made me to witness the tales of this slim volume. I recommend you read this, but it will probably hurt- as learning experiences sometimes do.