Truth, Privilege, and James Baldwin

also affected his own. And I think that you know, for all of you who've been listening to me for quite some time, you know that James Baldwin is so moody that I hold in high high regard. And if you ever watch me on TV, his picture is hanging up behind me in my living room because I think that he is one of the was one of the

most profound, prolific writers of the twentieth century. And Greg and I get into a really great conversation about, you know, Baldwin and why him as a straight white man, you know, he found the need to want to write about him, and I talk about my experience as a you know, a queer black woman and entering into politics and also wanting to have a reflective tone when thinking about the times that we are living in. And so it was just a really inspiring conversation and I hope that you

all enjoy it, folks. I am. I'm very excited to welcome to ok F Daily for the very first time, Greg Garrett, who I'm excited to bring on uh to talk about one of my favorite one of my favorite writers and authors and just people the Gospel, has written the book The Gospel according to James Baldwin. And for those of you who listen UH to my show, you

know that I talk about James Baldwin. I quote James Baldwin because I think that he was one of the most thoughtful patron saints of democracy of America that I had ever seen. So Greg tell us, you know, obviously, you know, for me, James Baldwin a black queer man, I am a black queer woman who also, you know, because of him, has felt the ability to critique America. Yeah right. He gave those of us who believe in the ideals of America the opportunity to say, no, no,

I critique this country because I love it. Because I would like for it to live up to it's it's its ideals and its vision, and it fails us time and time again, and it's heartbreaking. So talk to us about why Baldwin for you as a as a straight white man, why you know, why why why Baldwin for you?

when I do cultural criticism and cultural theology. When you when you look at the screen or at the stage and you don't see yourself represented, it's it's almost like you don't exist. And so Baldwin. Baldwin was an essential figure for all of that. But this book actually grows out of a second thing, which is, without denying in any way his essential identities, the recognition that great writers, great artists, great feemakers do this thing which is separate

from their lived identities. And so I talk early in the book about mister Faulkner, the you know, the great Nobel Prize winning novelist, and and mister Baldwin and I both had our issues with him. M Faulkner, like many writers, was so much better on the page than he was as a human being. But mister Faulkner talked about how great artists speak out of their postage stamp of land, that that loved identity, right. So, like, you know, I was born in Oklahoma, I grew up in Georgia, North Carolina.

You know, I experienced racism in the schools that I went to as a kid, and and those things shape who I am as a fiction writer. As a nonfiction writer is at theologian. But if I'm doing my job in the same way that mister Baldwin did his job, then then my identity as a straight white male, middle class Christian is not the limitation of who I'm able to talk to. And what Baldwin does in his work is you're well aware, is he reaches out to every

every part of the human family. Yeah, and he recognizes the essential humanity of every one of us. And you know, one of the reasons that I started the book with a chapter on Baldwin's theories about art and with Baldwin's literary criticism is that, you know, as important as he thought it was to advance the cause and to work towards justice and equity, he said that art that only did that, art that didn't create a fully rounded picture

of its human beings was a failure. And so that's what I admire about him as a fiction writer, it's what I admire about him as a critic and theologian, and I do think of him as a theologian, and it's what I admire about his activism and his advocacy, because at the end of the day, he understood that we are so much more alike than we are different.

And even though at the beginning of the book I talk about the Venn diagrams that he and I inhabit, and there's only the tiniest bit of space, you know, once you narrow down all those curs where theoretically James Baldwin and I operate on the same you know, same plane. And yet it was very clear to him that he and I are so much more like than we are different, and that love is going to triumph in the end, and the things that we think that separate us are

going to fall away. And I, you know, I can't get about a bed in the morning if I don't believe that in my heart of.

I think that what makes Baldwin such an immense figure and remaining such an immense figure, is that he really was not looking just at the conditions of the time that he was living in, but looking at the human condition and as as as a bigger piece of it all.

I think one of the things that he had said when speaking about kind of when speaking about whiteness, right, and this idea that black and white people are created and looked at differently, and really looking at it through the lens of media, is that black people have always had to look at white people. Right. Everything is about is about what is mainstream, what is normal is always

measured against what is white. Right, And he had said that white people never have to look at us, right, they never have to understand us as complete and total human beings, which is what makes it easier right to dehumanize, right. And so I asked this question to you, which is as we're living inside of this moment, but you're also in this very reflective space having written this book right about the complexity and the layered person that is James Baldwin.

You know, how do you see what he stated about the human condition? How do you see that as continuing to be true? And if there are any solutions that we have experienced, even for a brief time, that he had offered up in his lifetime.

heads explode just at that sentence. So these windows were donated in nineteen fifty two, nineteen fifty three, you know, right in the middle of the civil rights movement, and it's you know, it's a very active and you know and ticket antagonistic act of the Daughters of the Confederacy to say we want to put these you know, these Confederate saints in the space of the Nation's Church. And so after Mother Emmanuel, the dean of the cathedral said

we we can't continue to house these windows. And so this weekend the windows had been taken out a couple of years ago, but a new set of windows were dedicated and a worship service and celebration came along with that. Henry Lewis Gates did the reading from the Book of Romans, Justice Katanji Brown Jackson Jackson from the Letter from Birmingham Jail.

And I mean like there are a thousand of us there in the cathedral celebrating these new windows, which are a new vision, a new voice that has been denied in the Nation's Church since its founding. One of the most important parts of the work that I do in this book on Baldwin is a part of what I do. I go out and talk to people who look like me, yeah, about race, And you don't have those victories every day.

And I hear that in your question. But there are moments of hope, and there are moments of movement when, as Baldwin asked us to do, we face up to our history and acknowledge it and tell the truth about it, And when people who look like me not only acknowledge it, but repent of it and apologize for it and say what can we do to make some small movement forward? And so I've seen that in some of the spaces that I've been a part of over the last couple

of years. And I saw it this last weekend, and I mean it was a celebration of a victory for inclusion and for conversation and for justice. And like, I feel like I can walk another couple of miles down the road having witnessed this. But it all comes back to Baldwin's stuff. I was also at the Museum of African American History and Culture on Friday of last week and there's this big thing from Baldwin on the major wall in the museum about our history. You know, we

have to face up to it. We are literally you know, we inhabit our history, and if we don't deal with it, then you know, it will have its way with us. And so for me, that is the big thing that Baldwin teaches us. It's truth telling and then it's compassion. And toward the end of the book, I also point out something that I think about almost every day. Baldwin, toward the end of his life and a couple of interviews, says, the sum total of my wisdom is this, we can do better.

until they advance. So, you know, end of the day, Baldwin is one of my favorite writers, and I don't talk about him anymore as a gay writer or a black writer. He is like Spike Lee. You know, I don't talk about as a black director. James Baldwin is one of the greatest writers in our history. And those seven pages, which are you know, his letter to his nephew at the beginning of the fire next time, I will hold up to any seven pages written by any American writer. I mean, I think that much of him

as a writer. And then you add in activist and advocate and just this figure of courage who did a whole bunch of things that were crazy, scary, and yet he did them because he believed he needed to be a witness.

our character and from our moral standings. And so what comes up for you and what does it mean for you to be putting out a book in this time when a bald would have been banned and is probably banned, and it is banned, right, So please.

we're we're on we're on the air. But I think about people who are unable to face who they are and be honest about where they come from and about their failures and about their their mistakes, and so are unable to correct them. And those people are trapped in the same way that Baldwin talks about white people being trapped. Yeah.

So if if forever black people have been the way that you measure whiteness, and uh if the lost cause myth for example is UH is partly built around you know, however difficult your life might be, if you're a poor white person in the American South or anywhere in America, in the Midwest, any place at least you're not black, and you you can you can set that blackness as a loadstar. And so Baldwin asked his nephew to think

about this. What would it be like if you woke up in the morning and you looked at the sky and everything was different, you know, the sky, you know, the sun was out, but the stars were blazing. It would freak you out. And so he had this incredible compassion, you know, this recognition that asking people to be honest about their history is going to shake up who they are because it's it's going to force them to tell

the truth and acknowledge things. But one of the things, and I had mentioned to your producer while ago, that Robert Jones uh is coming to Baylor next week and we're going to do an event together here. Robbie's new book about the roots of white supremacy is so good at telling our historical truth. Like I went to school, I went to high school in Oklahoma. We did not learn about also race massacre. We didn't even hear it called the Tulsa race riots. We just didn't learn about it.

And if you don't learn about it, then how can you correct it. And it just when you don't deal with history, particularly history that's uncomfortable, then it just allows

the status quo to be maintained. And Baldwin talks about the status quo a lot, and he says, it's already hard enough to change the status quo because you know, as doctor King said, people you know who are in a position of privilege, you don't want to give that up, right, But if you don't even tell the truth about it, and if you don't even say, here are the reasons that people in privilege need to reckon with who they are and what they've done, then how can anything ever change?

And that that, for me, is the distressing thing about the legislation you're talking about, and honestly why I feel not only do I need to write about it, but I need to speak. I need to preach. I need to get out there in every venue that I can and stand there looking like me and say, hey, people who look like me, we got to think about this stuff. You know.

battleground for social justice again, is because of the notable progress that has been made, the critical thought that has been raised, the opportunities that we saw presented through the historical the historic election of the first black president, right through you know, through people from marginalized communities sitting inside as secretaries of you know, of transportation, as leaders in

our government. Like this is why this is happening. You wouldn't see a need for this kind of white lash and bigotry if, in fact, young people's minds haven't already been woke right to the fact that, you know what this system isn't just this place is not right. It isn't okay that by virtue of my birth and whiteness, that I have more privilege and opportunity than my friend down the street or my neighbor, you know, or what

have you. And so you know, my question for you, the last question I have for you is, you know, Baldwin's footprint on this country, on this world is enormous, is cemented, is important, and what message do you think that he would continue to convey if, in fact, he was still with us in this moment of great hopelessness, right,

because that's where we are. We've had tremendous progress, but the pain that we are seeing right now, in the cruelty that is being wielded by Republican politicians, is creating a sense of hopelessness. So what do you think his message would be?

during my lifetime. You know. And I'm sixty one years old, you know, I was born in nineteen sixty one, grew up in the sixties, was fairly cognizant of what was going on. And you know, for all the excitement of Barack Obama being elected, I do really think that Abram Kennedy has it right, which is this is this is not a you know, like a triangle of narrative that

we're used to. It's it's jagged, you know, And as you were saying, Barack Obama's election and a more inclusive society scared the crap out of a whole lot of white people. And so that's how we end up with, you know what the Atlantic called mister Trump as you know, the great white supremacist president.

so daunted and so lost and so hopeless. And at the end of it, he comes back to that question of love again and he says, you know, I think about the church that I grew up in, where we were told to love each other, and he says, whoever else did not believe that I did? And I think about that a lot, you know, in terms of like trying to bridge some of these chasms in our reality

at this time. And then I also think about hopefulness in connection with the last work that he was writing at the end of his life, which was a play called The Welcome Table. And you know, Baldwin loved black spirituals, he loved gospel music, he loved the blues. I know that he was referring to, you know, I'm going to sit at the Welcome Table one of these days, which is one of the songs that I learned in the

African American Church that rescued me. And the image that he had at the Welcome Table was one that he talked about throughout his life. Someday, he said, you know, and whether that's in this reality, please God or not. But someday we are all going to come to this space where we can sit at the table and we're not going to see those received identities. I'm not going to be a straight white Christian man. I'm going to

be a human. I'm going to be a child of God, you know, even as we might put it, and we're going to sit together at the table. All of us are going to sit together at the table, and we're going to be seen and known and loved. And that's a central part of my faith and you know, the crazy thing is that I think it remained a central part of Baldwin's faith even though he fled the organized church as a teenager. Up to the end of his life,

He's still believed in that possibility. And you know, I talked about, like, what do I need to get out of bed in the morning. I need to believe in hope, you know, I need to believe that change is possible, that we can do better, and I need to have some pragmatic ways to think about that, which for me is a white man is We've got to do some truth telling. We've got to do some repentance. We've got

to create relationships with people who have been marginalized. We've got to learn who they are and learn what they need and how we can move forward, because I mean, another problem that white guys have is that we want to go in and fix things that we don't know

anything about. What Baldwin has given me as a person who looks and lives like I do, is all of these thoughts around love and hope and the idea that you know, at the end of the day, we are so much more alike than we are different, and that there is possibility and you know, I believed I believe this so much more strongly when Barack Obama stood on the steps of that Ye do when I look at

the Republican debates. But I also just got back from Bill Clinton's Presidential library and I was watching some of the video there and it was I mean, it brought tears to my eyes. Whatever it is you know that you want to say about Bill Clinton, but that that phrase, I still believe in a place called hope. And that's what Baldwin gives me every time I read him, every time I hear his voice, every time I think about him, I hope that we can do and be better.

Greg Garrett, this was such a wonderful conversation, folks. The book is the Gospel according to James Baldwin, and it is out now and I encourage every one to go and get a copy. Greg. I hope that you'll come back and join us again on WOKF.