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11

My Dungeon Shook

Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation

1
terms
2
notes

Baldwin, J. (1990). My Dungeon Shook. In Baldwin, J. The Fire Next Time. Penguin Classics, pp. 11-18

eager or quick to argue or fight; aggressively defiant

13

a very definite tendency to sound truculent because you want no one to think you are soft

—p.13 by James Baldwin
notable
5 years, 3 months ago

a very definite tendency to sound truculent because you want no one to think you are soft

—p.13 by James Baldwin
notable
5 years, 3 months ago
14

[...] But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.

gorgeous prose, tho i should think about the implications of this more

—p.14 by James Baldwin 5 years, 3 months ago

[...] But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.

gorgeous prose, tho i should think about the implications of this more

—p.14 by James Baldwin 5 years, 3 months ago
16

[...] the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. [...]

this reminds me a lot of the framing in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (which i really need to finish, and also put into bookmarker)

—p.16 by James Baldwin 5 years, 3 months ago

[...] the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. [...]

this reminds me a lot of the framing in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (which i really need to finish, and also put into bookmarker)

—p.16 by James Baldwin 5 years, 3 months ago