Welcome to Litsy!

For all his anger, Baldwin‘s The Fire Next Time has an optimism his later, more realistic works, don‘t…especially after he saw Reagan elected and understood what it meant. And that‘s covered here. Gaude applies Baldwin to our times and it works both as an ode to one of my favorite humans ever and a passionate pointed analysis of where we are and what Trump meant and our role within (even us horrified-by-trump-and-his-white-privilege-base). 👇

Started this morning. I was looking forward to this, to revisiting Baldwin, but I didn‘t expect the introduction to be so eloquent and so moving.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Back at it!
March, I am ready for you!

Reading Log 2020 (Catching up)
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Last year grabbed me by the throat. It was difficult to find joy, my work load ticked up, & finishing projects required a sisyphean effort. I did engage in a twice-weekly DEI group where I learned (among many other things) I do not like being lectured on racism by white people--even when I can learn from them.
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I miss not having at least a sentence reminder about each of these books. Maybe in the New Year?

As white people have made their way back, we have been accused of “barbecuing while black,” “moving in while black,” “trying to enter our own apartments while black,” “playing go-go music while black.” We have been accused of being in spaces where we are obviously not wanted. In the end, Americans will have to decide whether or not this country will remain racist. ⬇️

“But it is not our task to save white people: That old idea has provided comfort for far too many across generations who continued to hate and harm. It works like a ready-made absolution: White people will be forgiven for their sins, because that‘s what black people do. We forgive them. And they sin again. Baldwin was right to give up on this folly.”

“I had not been in Heidelberg for two hours, and police had a black man‘s face pressed down on the concrete with a knee in his back. He screamed again. I didn‘t understand his pained words. I didn‘t know what he had done, if anything. I only knew the screaming was all too familiar.”

If you‘ve seen him as a guest or panelist on TV, you'll be unsurprised by how brilliantly Eddie Glaude Jr. talks about race in America in this book. It was wonderful and makes me want to go and read all of the James Baldwin I haven‘t read yet, which is most of it. Like Baldwin, Dr. Glaude writes beautifully, so he's a joy to read. But his analysis of white complicity throughout history and in our current political moment stings, and it should.

I‘ve just started listening to this book - it is poetry through and through.

You will not be disappointed.