Things They Will Never Learn

[Plaid Adder]

I'm reading James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and it is a little depressing how much of what he says about how racism works and what it does makes perfect sense and yet has never been acknowledged or understood by the group of white men that still by and large runs this country. Not only has this refusal to see kept us from truly addressing issues of racial and economic justice on a fundamental level, but it has also materially contributed to things like the insanity of our current government's approach to foreign policy. Here's your quote for today:

"It is the responsibility of free men to trust and to celebrate what is constant--birth, struggle, and death are constant, and so is love, though we may not always think so--and to apprehend the nature of change, to be able and willing to change. I speak of change not on the surface but in the depths--change in the sense of renewal. But renewal becomes impossible if one supposes things to be constant that are not--safety, for example, or money, or power. One clings then to chimeras, by which one can only be betrayed, and the entire hope--the entire possibility--of freedom disappears."

Supposing things to be constant that are not. Sums up the pathology of the gang in charge pretty succinctly, I think. Safety, of course, and money and power; but also their own rightness, the truth of their world view, their own position of privilege. Things they assume are constant that are not: that English is the global language, that America is the 'good guy,' that white people control most of the world's resources, that the planet will always be here. Things they refuse to learn: that all empires fall, that victories cannot always be bought, that having all the cards doesn't guarantee that you win the game, that there is nothing special about white Americans that entitles them to the wealth and power they have, that your capacity to hurt other people can long outlast your capacity to help yourself.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Loge23]

1. We are always creating the future

I heard the title statement recently and your thoughtful post reinforced that idea to me.
Forget about the past, we really can't do anything about it. But don't we want something more?
As a species, don't we want to evolve and grow ?
We all come from inherent prejudice. Take that misplaced energy and hate the hate.
Thanks for the book tip!

[Demeter]

2. If Stupid White Men Could Think Such Thoughts....

they'd be smart women. Sigh

[Plaid Adder]

3. kicking this for James Baldwin

because it's a great passage and deserves to be more widely circulated.

The Plaid Adder