Chamblee54

James Arthur Baldwin has become a star on facebook, thirty five years after his death. People love to quote him, and post artsy pictures of his face. Over the past year I have seen three Baldwin memes that required action. Once you start to research, there is no telling what you are going to find.
“I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.” This item is from a 1966 article that Mr. Baldwin wrote for The Nation. “One is in the impossible position of being unable to believe a word one’s countrymen say. “I can’t believe what you say,” the song goes, “because I see what you do”—and one is also under the necessity of escaping the jungle …”
“The song goes” is what the memes leave out. Ike Turner wrote the song. The Ikettes sing “I can’t believe…”, while Tina goes “agh, agh, agh, agh, agh, agh, agh, agh, agh.” Ike knew about being a no-good man. Tina looks a lot better in a short skirt than Mr. Baldwin did.
“I’d like to leave you with one more short quote from James Baldwin, “Whoever debases others is debasing himself.” This is from a June, 2020 video about racism. This quote is from Letter from a Region in My Mind, a 1962 essay in The New Yorker. “Letter…” clocks in at 22,114 words. Mr. Baldwin could crank out the word count.
“Letter…” covers a lot of ground. The “debase” quote comes in after Mr. Baldwin describes a visit to Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. Soon, Mr. Baldwin starts talking about race in the United States. One quote stood out: “But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them.”
“By this time, I was in a high school that was predominantly Jewish. This meant that I was surrounded by people who were, by definition, beyond any hope of salvation, who laughed at the tracts and leaflets I brought to school, and who pointed out that the Gospels had been written long after the death of Christ. … My best friend in high school was a Jew. He came to our house once, and afterward my father asked, as he asked about everyone, “Is he a Christian?”—by which he meant “Is he saved?” I really do not know whether my answer came out of innocence or venom, but I said, coldly, “No. He’s Jewish.” My father slammed me across the face with his great palm, and in that moment everything flooded back—all the hatred and all the fear, and the depth of a merciless resolve to kill my father rather than allow my father to kill me—and I knew that all those sermons and tears and all that repentance and rejoicing had changed nothing.”
“The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” This quote proved more difficult to chase down. It does not appear in any of Mr. Baldwin’s work. The earliest mention appears to be behind The New Yorker paywall. “During his wanderings, Baldwin warned a friend who had urged him to settle down that “the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” There is no link to a source.
The New Yorker article is cited by Lithub, which is then cited by New Transcendentalist. “These Timely James Baldwin Quotes … ,” from Bustle, credits the quote to “a 1957 letter to Sol Stein.”
Sol Stein “attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he served on the Magpie literary magazine with Richard Avedon and James Baldwin.” We don’t know if Mr. Stein was the one who made David Baldwin slap his step-son. A paywalled article, about the correspondence between Mr. Stein and “Jimmy,” does not mention the “place in which I’ll fit” quote.
The WaPo article did have a mind-blowing quote. “In the introduction to the book, Baldwin would ponder his influences: “When one begins looking for influences, one finds them by the score. … the King James Bible, the rhetoric of the store-front church, something ironic and violent and perpetually understated in Negro speech…” I saw this quote in 1976, in a college textbook. At the time, I thought this was an amazing quote. It stayed in my mind until the next life changing detail came along, not to be thought of again for forty six years.
Chamblee54 has written about Mr. Baldwin before. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” UPDATE: @QuoteResearch Replying to @chamblee54 @HilalIsler @lithub “It appeared in a 1957 letter from James Baldwin and Sol Stein reprinted in “Native Sons” (2004) edited by Sol Stein. I am planning to create a QI article on this topic” @QuoteResearch “Please get over the notion, Sol, that there’s some place I’ll fit when I’ve made some ‘real peace’ with myself : the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it. You know and I know that the ‘peace’ of most people is nothing but torpor” … James Baldwin to Sol Stein UPDATE: I was writing a story about Flannery O’Connor. I wanted to quote this post, but could not find the link. Neither google nor duckduckgo would show me this post. I had to go to the chamblee54 archive, and scroll through October 2022 until I found the post. This is a repost from 2022.