Two Sides of a Coin

2022 May 13

James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates engage in the literary conversation of how self-awareness, masculinity, and self-honesty shape the human bias. These themes are apparent within their works such as Between the World and Me and The Fire Next Time and demonstrates how judgement and assumption can warp a person's identity. They both advocate that the barriers of self-perception need to be removed as it can only lead to more confirmation bias and enforce selective viewpoints. This is a rising issue within the black community, as white people are inclined to be willfully ignorant to their status and enable racial prejudice to view other than their own. The perceived notion that white people have about black issues being universal pushes the cynicism of white supremacy. The effort, skill, and talent required by a black person to reach the same goals as a white person is many times greater. Opportunity might be the same but exercising the opportunity requires far more ability, carries more hazard than his contemporary white man. Baldwin's ideas evolved from the emergence of dehumanization of sensitive individuals, persistent delusion of white supremacy, and the hegemony of imperialism.

Baldwin's queer nature and Ta-Nehisi's masculinity clash to reveal the people born of principle and pride can lead to the dehumanization of sensitivity and innocence. According to Kirstine Taylor, "racial innocence is intimately bound to and produced by the nation's origins in racial capitalism … structure simultaneously by race and capitalism" (1). Innocence is the catalyst to shape individualism, but in this case, it can be used to capitalize on a black person's consciousness about the world around them. Essentially black people are bound to face a pre-determined path based on the pre-conceived notions of the black race and history. This argument shows it true colors in the face of racial prejudice since it guides white people's selective perception to automatically believe they should perish. "Otherness" reigns supreme in their minds and equating themselves to something that is outside their comfort zone causes them to subconsciously dehumanize them. According to Between the World and Me, "the entire narrative of this country argues against the truth of who you are" (1005). The intentionality of America disavowing their sins and condemning black people is the result of innocence being used as a transformation to consciousness. White people are essentially dehumanizing themselves in the process and they will need to learn how to deal with black attitudes and mannerisms, since they reflect their own selective bias. This becomes more prominent when Baldwin talks about the injustice being done to black lives when referencing his brother. According to The Fire Next Time, "I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, … the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime" (34). Destruction has an easy time hiding under the guise of innocence as white people will characterize it as the natural way in society. The desecration of black bodies gives black people the resentment they hold for white race, or any authoritative figurehead that supports them. The worst part is that white people choose not to acknowledge the foul course of black body destruction over history making them the topic of subjectivity over objectivity.

Baldwin and Ta'Nehisi clash due to the hopes of the white race coming to terms with their racial bias and acknowledging the existence of black people. According to The Fire Next Time, "Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. … but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth" (809). Baldwin uses the power of love and sensitive qualities for obtaining personal growth and to move on from judgement. By understand white people's motives, black people will be more equipped to handle injustice and carry out a dialogue between races. Baldwin think it is a possibility for white people to come around since his messages are not specifically for the black community, but for all who fall in earshot. While, Ta'Nehisi has less hopes and speculates that black people are condemned to always struggle just because of how rooted it is in history. Baldwin's queerness encapsulates sensitivity and the desire to bring everyone together since he is pretty much an outcast from his social demographic and outside forces. He knows what it is like to live within the principle and venturing out to seek those who are more open minded. Ta'Nehisi values strengthening his own race so that he can rise over the next challenge that white people throw at them adopting a careful nature of the future ahead. Baldwin's evolution was acquiring sensitive traits to evoke empathy to empathy and perseverance to those who could not see it.

Baldwin and Ta'Nehisi literary conversation expand to white supremacy and the damaging effects it can have on social consciousness. According to Mark Brown, "White supremacy has cultural dimensions, but white people in the USA, as whites, lacked a share culture distinct from the unjust consequences of being seen as white" (11). White people can be dictated by their own volition into creating fears that are deemed necessary for false identities to necessitate to the surface. They do this because American white people do not have cultural identity; therefore, they are free to believe and behave in a variety of ways without judgement by fellow whites. This framework does bodily harm to black Americans as the destruction of the black body can be seen as heritage to the United States since it has been rooted in history. According to Between the World and Me, "For so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket […] I was sad for my country but above all, in that moment, I was sad for you" (111). This statement illustrates the social consciousness of black people who are trying to live the American Dream but are constantly denied the existence to do so. "Dreamers" or white people already living the American dream cannot walk into consciousness since they are unconsciously focusing on how to seem superior to everyone else. The creation of racial discrimination and police brutality gave credence to that dream since it gave white people this perception of intangibility, since those systems mainly target people of color.

 Baldwin and Ta'Nehisi both notice that there is a situational irony to the American dream and how it contributes to the creation of systemic racism. According to Jon Nilson, "White supremacists create and maintain the illusion of whiteness not just as skin color, but as a way of that constitutes the standard for humanity at best. […] they will continue to participate after they die (1). This illustrates the dangers of abstract thinking and placing races and identities under huge generalizations so that those contents are universal to everyone. Yet, they really are not, and it is ultimately a search for power of mitigating everyone's issues despite their inherent privilege. White people will ignore anything that is outside of their comfort zone, as it exposes them to social conventions that denounce their inherit whiteness. This is apparent when Ta'Nehisi ruminates about the police's place in society when they shot prince. According to Between the World an Me, "This officer, given maximum power, bore minimum responsibility" (807). The judicial system and the workforce can be against people of color since it offers another way of pinning the blame on societal structure. Yet, most of our work force is made up of white people and arresting black people serves as a way of proving that white supremacy is not farther than we think. According to The Fire Next Time, "The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom … to dismiss white people as the slightly mad victims of their own brain washing" (862). The delusion that American people are pure and make it a point to uphold that image is brainwashing their identity and morality. Baldwin realizes that the system is corrupted, and it would be more effective to communicate with the unprotected, since the privilege have a multitude of ways of shutting him down. Ta'Nehisi on the other hand, endures the solidarity of white supremacy hoping that it will collapse on itself while he builds the black community to be stronger in the end.

 Baldwin and Ta'Nehisi believes imperialism are used to justify the ambivalent nature of labor, yet it is ultimately a tool to disunify and embed social discrimination. According to Vince Schleitwiler, "the claim to do justice to difference provides imperialism with its moral authority, political legitimacy, and ideological engine" (5).  The irony of this statement is that the gap between justice and difference relies solely on the guidance of inclusion. Black bodies are marginalized within their own communities and constantly must assert their humanity to be included. It comes to a point where the color of their skin becomes the indifference of where violence becomes the salvation to a perceived justice. Incarcerations, police brutality, and domestic violence are some of the examples of how Baldwin views imperialism. According to Between the World and Me, "At the onset of the Civil War, our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars, more than all of American industry, … the prime product rendered by our stolen -- bodies -- cotton -- was America's primary export" (1018). This illustrates that black people are fuel for the American industry and the perpetuation of this system encourages the act of bodily harm to black people's identities. A black person without their identity would be a grave omission to the American dream as they are the ones who put that idea into motion. It is a dream, that they always strive for, but it is constantly getting snatched away thanks to the capitalization of the social hierarchy. According to The Fire Next Time, "You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no reason. … Take no one's word for anything, including mine- but trust your experience. Know whence you came" (52). Baldwin believes that experiences should not be extrapolated to fit a person's narrative and it should not invoke shame if the experience it does not work out. This is how black people navigated through imperialism, by owning to their strengths and weakness, and trotting through the mindscape of the American industry.  Ta'Nehisi believes that Americans are all white in nature, since they reap the benefits from wars, travesties, and injustices. The intersectionality between Baldwin and Coate's beliefs is that Imperialism is multifaceted and creates the hierarchy of victimhood for black people.

In summary, the use of shaming and blaming the black race for most of the problems that have occurred in America is not the solution. It will only make them regress into a figment of how they are viewed, and what they aspire to be in the future. From Baldwin's ideas, his audience can see that he did not want a nation that was governed by one race but people who were concerned about their wellbeing. The destruction of lives is what really kills a nation because it instills the belief that the sanctity of human life is expendable. He also affirms that black survival relies on their own worth and perseverance to challenge white supremacy. It specifies that they are not trying to be a part of the status quo but overcome it, since it threatens with cultural assimilation. White innocence is prevalent problem that the black community needs to take note as it not only includes the destruction of their bodies, but their socio-economic status as well.

Works Cited

Baldwin, James, et al. The Fire next Time. Köln, Germany, Taschen, 2017.

Brown, Mark B. "James Baldwin and the Politics of White Identity." Contemporary Political

Theory, vol. 20, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-22. ProQuest, http://libproxy.csudh.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/james-baldwin-politics-white-identity/docview/2494719257/se-2?accountid=10347, doi:https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-020-00401-9. Accessed 13 May 2022.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. Random House Us, 2015.

Maxwell, William J., and Bill V. Mullen. "James Baldwin in the Fire This Time." James

Baldwin Review, vol. 7, no. 1, Sept. 2021, pp. 159--65, https://doi.org/10.7227/jbr.7.9. Accessed 12 May 2022.

SCHLEITWILER, VINCE. "A Demonology of Comparisons: Imperialism, Justice, and Anti/Blackness." Comparative Literature, vol. 68, no. 2, 2016, pp. 116--29, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44211283. Accessed 13 May 2022.

Taylor, Kirstine. "Racial Capitalism and the Production of Racial Innocence." Theory & Event, vol. 24 no. 3, 2021, p. 702-729. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/tae.2021.0040. Accessed 12 May 2022.