The Private Life: On James Baldwin | Hacker News Reader

The Private Life: On James Baldwin

theparisreview.org

128 pointssamclemens15 comments

I know only pieces of his life, but whenever a video or audio clip of Baldwin pops up, I listen voraciously. He is articulate in a way that seems to blend the cerebral with the emotive. He seems to summon forth both Maya Angelou and Christopher Hitchens; The level of articulateness is so rare. I wish I had him on tap as a podcast, ... endlessly ruminating. If you want a slice..

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jXwWCyMJyc

[2] https://youtu.be/oFeoS41xe7w?si=T9ZnSOAfSqpqj-Y2&t=851

This is the "Aristotle" Jobs meant for us to endlessly question, perhaps - someday - via an AI.-

PS. To clarify: Meant this in an 'allegorical' sense, with Aristotle being one of our (many) wise men.-

(And, I do not mean the almost "pachinko-with-vectors" AI we have now. I mean if we where to - literally - be able to intellectually reconstruct and preserve greats such as Aristotle).-

s/where/were/

He seems to almost have a posh London accent

(went for the Atlantic, but couldn't help himself?)

Thank you for these gems!

James Baldwin was both a genius and probably my favorite american of all time. Another Country is one of my favorite novels, and his observation of race, gender, and american culture was razor sharp, but formed through a sincere dedication to the power of empathy, love, and kindness.

Which is not to say he would soften his tongue in his critique. Honest to the point that it is still verboten to admit in professional circles the extent to which his critiques still apply today.

He would have turned 100 this past week. I miss him every day and it was a devastating blow to american culture when he died.

Indeed, his writing often provided a unique perspective into a complex part of American history. I often ponder if he was able to truly reconcile that pain before his own story ended.

"It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have." (James Baldwin)

Best regards, =3

I have to thank this man for making it crystal-clear that the FBI should be abolished, and many of its employees should be tried. More than 478 pages on a little gay black poet (in a time when very few people would follow such a person), but when it came to Bin Laden and several people on expired visas, they “couldn’t connect the dots”…

https://vault.fbi.gov/james-baldwin

I adore James Baldwin...I think he is an intrepid sojourner of what being an American means, of our fraught and compromised inheritance...when Baldwin bounces against a boundary, a prejudice, an assumption, in Europe or America, it is always so generative for us, we learn so much from it, we are a little less ignorant of ourselves.

"I picked the cotton, I carried it to the market, and I built the railroads under someone else’s whip for nothing. For nothing." this has burned in my brain.

I wish I were brave enough to pack up my things and move to Paris unplanned :(

You might not wish yourself Baldwin's encouragements to do so.

Being gay and black in America in the 1950s has a way of steeling your resolve given the alternative.

If one finds TFA interesting, one might also enjoy the debate between Baldwin and the founder of National Review from 1965: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTEr7Cwc4cE

Positive comments on James Baldwin on the Orange Site? I must be having a stroke. ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com