Analysis | Dear James:

Madison Ross
Jun 1, 2020
3 min read

I, like many other African-Americans living in the United States, would relate to James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, and many African-American Civil Rights activists living through Reconstruction, Segregation, and the Civil Rights movements, especially when harboring the thought of forever being unequal. My mom, an African-American woman, was a victim of police brutality three summers ago; she was beaten helplessly and sent to the hospital. The cop wasn’t yet fired from his position till two years after the fact without any further punishment. He’s out and about, fired, but still out about.

As this lives as a constant event for the black community, institutions' complicit, privileged, and passive behavior implies, if not welcomes, an acceptance to the culture of police brutality and racism is in the United States towards African-Americans. Such American theme leaves the black community lacking proper healing, development, and proactivity for the country when it comes to racial discrimination. Thus, people like my mom, like me, will always have things like this to expect, lacking surprise or shock of such repetitive and institutionalized racism.

In “Notes from a Native Son,” in the memories of his father, Baldwin acknowledges a naivete he has as a child watching his father get angry, harnessing this “black rage,” without a true understanding of its origins or that it’ll soon be his own future. There were, of course, occurrences of my naivete or ignorance as a child as it came to racism, looking back specifically on commentary ranging from how my hair was worn to how I was nicknamed as chocolate desserts in elementary school, being the only black student. I never recognized such racial undertones and connotations, but I recall my parents getting furious for such situations. I just assumed they were being overly strict. As I grew older however, I understood such differences and tensions amongst races. However, it wasn’t really until my mom’s attack I realized no one is safe from such hatred and prejudice.

It’s a numbing feeling, feeling of disappointment never to be salvaged. Never to be able to look at actions the same way without this kind of subtext, my perspective converted into a more calculated, morbid, and triggered persona.

I don’t know, but it somehow feels like a right of passage for the black community--the consciousness of always being seen as lesser than--and that is a terrible thing to think about. But I really related to Baldwin’s letter to his nephew, explaining how the sooner a black person in the United States understands they will always be seen as lesser than, the lesser of a blow to their psyche and heart. It is what it is.

“Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens in the London of more than a hundred years ago. I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, "No, this is not true. How bitter you are," but I am writing this letter to you to try to tell you something about how to handle them, for most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions under which you were born for I was there. Your countrymen were not there and haven't made it yet. Your grandmother was also there and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocent check with her. She isn't hard to find. Your countrymen don't know that she exists either, though she has been working for them all their lives.”

--James Baldwin, The Progressive, 1962

It is devastating, if not mentally tolling, to have events and experiences described from the past still thriving today. It is painful. Here are resources to donate to and support legal funding for protestors standing up against racism and police brutality as well as organizations helping heavily impacted communities across the country. #blacklivesmatter

Black Lives Matter: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019

Black Visions Collective: https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/about

The National Bail Fund Network: https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory

NAACP Legal Defense Fund: https://www.naacpldf.org/about-us/

Atlanta Solidarity Fund: https://mnrpllr.com/2zG5NXC

Chicago Community Bond Fund: https://mnrpllr.com/3eEySRT

Columbus Freedom Fund: https://mnrpllr.com/3eEMYma

Florida Justice Center: https://mnrpllr.com/2XJgSPu

L.A.: People's City Council Freedom Fund: https://mnrpllr.com/3ctfy8U

Louisville Community Bail Fund: https://mnrpllr.com/2MjOyy0

Minnesota Funds (multiple): https://mnrpllr.com/2Xjm65w

NYC: Free Them All for Public Health: https://mnrpllr.com/2zSO2nV