My friend @peteorrall said “experiencing joy is radical.” I’ve heard variations of that about happiness, laughter, and love.
They’re right. The oppressors want us sick and miserable.
Look to people who have been oppressed en masse. While they do have breaking points, they emerge because of their ability to love, laugh, and smile.
Be radical. Find joy. Find love. Find laughter.
James Baldwin lived in Istanbul from 1961 to 1971, and in this stunning film recording he is sailing along the Bosphorus Strait, the liquid border separating Europe and Asia, and that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.
Love that pic
2/2: #JamesBaldwin prophetically understood how the #AmericanDream itself was the engine of #inequality. It seems obvious now as we witness #capitalism in its last throes, but it was revolutionary in 1965.
"What is crucial here is that unless we can manage to accept, establish some kind of dialog between those people whom I pretend have paid for the American dream and those other people who have not achieved it, we will be in terrible trouble"
1/2: Today is the 60th anniversary of #JamesBaldwin vs. William Buckley debating at #Cambridge the question "Is the #AmericanDream at the expense of the #American Negro?"
I urge you to watch the full debate below, not only to witness #Baldwin's extraordinary oratory skills, his emotional intelligence & foresight, but also to suffer the pretentious, prejudiced & wildly unaware argument of Buckley, which explains the wilful laisser-faire attitude to #whitesupremacy.
It's Day 13 of #LGBTQPlusHistoryMonth (UK) and #BlackHistoryMonth (US), and today, I want to share a quote:
'It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and they assume themselves to be. One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself – that is to say, risking oneself.'
#JamesBaldwin, 'The Fire Next Time'.
"To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time." — #JamesBaldwin #BlackHistory
@kenthompson @bookstodon The Authors Guild Foundation is offering an online series on James Baldwin this year #books
#JamesBaldwin
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reading-james-baldwin-agf-series-subscription-tickets-1138417119249
Awww! My order from @DetritusBooks came with a bunch of free stickers and zines! Thank you!!
#kleebenally #acab #jamesbaldwin #anarchism #IndigenousAnarchism
Remembering the luminous James Baldwin, who died 1 Dec 1987:
“You think your pains & heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.”
“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”
#JamesBaldwin #quotes #books #libraries #justice #power
On this day, in 1955 James Baldwin's Notes of A Native Son was published. So much of his work speaks to our present moment.
"It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have." from No Name in the Street, 1972.
So, I took my usual time out from WFH to pop out for a quick read. Helped by a trip to the bookshop.
Was also probably my final therapy session too. But I’ll still take time out to read.
#Reading #Bookstadon #Books #AudreLorde #JamesBaldwin
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
—James Baldwin
“I am not the n here….You the white people invented him. And you’ve got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that.”
—James Baldwin, on white Americans, 1963
