Under the Spell of James Baldwin | Hacker News Reader

Under the Spell of James Baldwin

nybooks.com

61 pointssamclemens7 comments

I saw 'I am not your Negro' (which the article is largely about) a couple weeks ago; it's fantastic. It's mainly am unpublished Baldwin piece on the deaths of MLK, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers read by Samuel Jackson.

There's a good deal of media and especially cinema criticism in the piece; looking at American culture through The eyes of it's film. The movie incorporates clips of many of the pieces referenced, ones I'm a generation to young to know, which helps bridge the generational gap. It's an excellent technique.

And the subject matter - extrajudicial killings of black men - is still extremely relevant, of course.

I too thought the movie was compelling, and well worth the watch -- perhaps its most powerful segment, at least to me, was the contrast of clips of police brutality, riots, and demonstrations alongside traditional/nuclear family advertisements.

Here's the entirety of the roundtable between Baldwin, Poitier, and others (shown briefly in the film), which I found fascinating and, in many ways, as relevant as ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H7Cr0HtiJI

I read "The Fire Next Time" in 11th grade, which was pretty much the perfect time to have the rug pulled out from under me.

I am very grateful to the people who did the rug-pulling.

In the past year or so, I've kept re-remembering the lyric "God gave Noah the rainbow-sign...".

Beautiful lyric. I met a man in Berkeley who was playing trumpet on the street. He used to play in Sun Ra's arkestra. He said something that I won't forget: he said that when we're truly "past race" in this country, we'll realize there are more colors, not fewer!

well, the rest of the lyric is " no more water; the fire next time". it's more prophetic than beautiful.

Very deep song. It's got me seeing through ways my religion distorted myth, even as it acted as one of my most conscious sources of it.

"I baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he'll baptize you with breath and fire." (John the Baptist)

So, did you hear about the scientists telling of methane coming out of the ground? They're saying it's gonna get warm around here.

liked the film a lot, the best parts were the clips of Baldwin himself speaking. Spellbinding is exactly the right word.

i was somewhat distracted by Jackson's narration. a huge contrast in energy. spoken, basically, like an older man. and i suppose that could be by design since i gather the narration is from later writings of Baldwin. either way, i thought it was interesting how much extra magic and feeling he could convey in the words, via his delivery. it certainly has a way of cutting through any preprogrammed white defensiveness that may be secretly lingering.

im sure a lot of this footage is on youtube (especially the panel with MLK and Malcom X) and i would definitely check that out if nothing else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com