Thursday August 4, 2022; 10:39 PM EDT
- Rereading my summary notes for the brief essay that opens The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin, I see a portrait of racism that is largely psychological, greatly tormented and terrified. It's not a simple matter of preferring to give the benefits of wealth to oneself and one's kin. It's about deep psychological wounds that continue to grip and poison the racists and their sense of culture. It's about surfaces or pretenses of culture and the deep, indifferent, and brutal thing beneath the surface. Baldwin says white Americans protest, "It isn't so!" but surely if one has been, say, left beaten in a vacant lot in one's home city by police or passing strangers, the interpretation does not seem far-fetched. #