The essence of this conflict is the contradiction at the heart of America’s self-understanding. The writer puts aside America’s myths and legends and forces a kind of confrontation with the society as it is, becoming a disturber of the peace in doing so.”Ī renowned American writer, Baldwin also became a brilliant critic of America’s conflicted condition: a so-called democracy in which one’s skin color determined the value of one’s life and justified America’s organizational system. “It means fighting an astute and agile guerrilla warfare with that American complacency which so inadequately masks the American panic.”Īs Glaude notes, “In this sense, Baldwin’s view of the writer was a decidedly moral one. “It is, alas, the truth that to be an American writer today means mounting an unending attack on all that Americans believe themselves to hold sacred,” Baldwin wrote in 1962. Glaude’s perspective of history’s dèjá vu all over again is stated in the book’s subtitle: “James Baldwin’s America And Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own.”
McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton, where he is also the chair of the Center for African American Studies and the chair of the Department of African American Studies.
is a clear example of a historical genre I call living history, i.e., history being written in real time by living historians.
0 kommentar(er)
