James Baldwin and the Legacy of Racism

I don’t remember how old I was—maybe twelve or thirteen—when I read James Baldwin’s Another Country and my suspicion about what sexual intercourse meant was confirmed. If I didn’t know about sex I was too young to read Baldwin and come away with an understanding of American racism, but throughout the rest of my life he’s schooled me in what it means to be dehumanized and what it takes to reclaim that humanity.

I was 18 when Martin Luther King was assassinated and I remember attending a memorial service at the Broadmoor, of all places: the resort outside Colorado Springs that hosts a theater, skating rink, ski area (at least it did at the time), and other assorted recreational activities for the rich. King’s activism, deeply rooted in Christian charity, was palatable for the mainstream until he started talking about how militarism and poverty went hand in hand in an imperial state. I didn’t read Malcolm X until college, when his argument against integration forced activists to take sides: accept the message of King’s civil rights movement, so closely aligned with religious faith, or replace integration with separation and black nationalism, which would inspire the formation of the black power movement.

Baldwin, who published Notes of a Native Son in 1955, before this conflict between King and Malcolm X informed the dialog, examined a conflict within his own psyche that had to be  addressed in order to make his way in the world or be in a position to choose a side:

“It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one’s own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one’s strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair.” (“Notes of a Native Son”)

Baldwin’s peripatetic life was testimony to this conflict, but after reading a new book by Jules Farber, James Baldwin: escape from America, exile in Provence, about Baldwin’s life in the French village of Saint-Paul de Vence in his later years, I felt a great sense of relief to know that he enjoyed the success, companionship, comfort, intellectual stimulation, and safety that every human being deserves. While not immune to local French racism, his world was so expansive, so full of life and love that he was safe from the American racism that might have denied all of it.

That racism is what helped elect Donald Trump. It’s not the defining quality in everyone who voted for him but it’s the factor that keeps his base engaged when confronted with behavior that many of them find embarrassing or even intolerable. I recently heard an interview on the radio with a reporter talking with Trump supporters in a former steel town in Pennsylvania. This is obviously a place where the loss of jobs and the resulting economic desperation he exploited would explain his win, and many of the interviewees were former steel workers who were either unemployed or working low wage jobs.  Yet every single one of those interviewed engaged in some sort of racial slur, whether it was about “illegal aliens” taking jobs or those “NFL N-word” players taking a knee.

Baldwin understood the stranglehold of white supremacy: “At the root of the American Negro problem is the necessity of the American white man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to be able to live with himself. And the history of this problem can be reduced to the means used by Americans—lynch law and law, segregation and legal acceptance, terrorization and concession—either to come to terms with this necessity, or to find a way around it, or (most usually) to find a way of doing both things at once.”

So this problem continues to play out in the election of Donald Trump and the resurgence of white supremacy groups ready to unmask themselves and take to the streets. But Baldwin sees that despite “the terrorization which the Negro in America endured and endures . . . despite the cruel and totally inescapable ambivalence of his status in this country, the battle for his identity has long ago been won. . . . It remains for him to fashion out of his experience that which will give him sustenance, and a voice.”

Many of those voices were heard in the local elections last week in various states throughout the country. Those voices are being heard from Black Lives Matter and other minority groups whose activism will put to rest Mark Lilla and his ilk who argue that “identity liberalism has failed.” Donna Brazile verified what we already knew, that the Democratic primary was rigged for Hilary. As I said in my La Jicarita post of September 11, “We’re not going back. The resistance is already here, in full force, in all its diversity, fomented at the community level where folks are making decisions based on circumstances and need. The focus is not on conversion of the racists and xenophobes and fundamentalists who will no doubt always be with us until the structure that supports these reactionary beliefs is relegated to the dustbin of history. The assault on that structure lies in minority emancipation, the emergence of a fully realized multicultural society, demilitarization, and economic equality.”

The last sentence of Baldwin’s essay “Stranger in the Village” is: “The world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.”

#MeToo

I refrained from participating in the #MeToo response to sexual harassment and assault until I could speak with my two sons about what happened to me in my early twenties. On a trip to Mexico with my mother a young Mexican man raped me at knifepoint on a beach in San Blas. We knew there was little hope of an arrest so we left and came back to the states, where over the years the only ones I told about the rape were Mark, my partner of 34 years, and a few friends when the subject of abuse came up.

I also refrained from participating in the #MeToo response until I could write a more complete account of my life in northern New Mexico, where I’ve lived most of my adult life. Here, in these rural villages and former land grant commons, where a cultural legacy of machismo power remains extant, I experienced a more complex—and positive—relationship with Anglo, Pueblo, and Indo-Hispano men.

But before I talk about these relationships, I want to address how complicated they are by the struggles all of us deal with establishing even our consensual romantic and sexual relationships regardless of whether we’re women, men, straight, lesbian, gay, or transgender. I came of age in the late sixties and seventies during the sexual revolution spurred by the loosening of middle-class morality and feminist assertion. I think most of us would concur this was liberating, terrifying, and not without residual trauma. So we headed out into a world forming relationships that often imitated the status quo in a search for safety or headed into the unknown where the struggles for equality often led to disappointment and even trauma. Some of us were able to find a middle ground where we continued to work through relational power structures within a relatively secure family unit.

Because of my generational and familial experience I was hyper aware of how I was treated in the world. That alertness was coupled with a life lived mostly outside the mainstream: no career path in a hierarchical system where women were often susceptible to abuse. For the most part self-employed as writers and publishers, Mark and I never had bosses and built a house without a crew. We socialized with like-minded alternative generation house builders and workers, where any relationships were consensual, if not sometimes confused.

That’s not to say I wasn’t exposed to abusive environments. When I worked as a seasonal employee for the Forest Service in my early twenties it was mostly as a fire lookout, alone in the tower with my dogs and various lovers (including Mark). Women who worked on the fire crews were often subject to sexual harassment. I not only avoided that kind of work because of the hot, dirty conditions it entailed but because of what I knew about its record of abuse.

Mark and I became involved in community organizing in both Placitas, where we lived for 20 years, and El Valle, where I’ve now been for over 25. As land grant communities surrounded by national forests, both villages were forced to deal not only with the United States Forest Service and its management plans but with real estate developers, county and state governments and regulators, and urban based environmental groups whose environmentalism often differed from that of land based activists. I formed many relationships with activists from both the Hispano land grant communities and Native American pueblos that were both professional and often personal (dancing at the Chamisa Lounge in Española was a favorite recreation). I never experienced or witnessed any sexual harassment or abuse. As we organized over many years we were also thrown together with numerous bureaucrats in hundreds of meetings, negotiations, and field trips. While the bureaucrats may not have liked me much, I never experienced, or witnessed, sexual harassment in these encounters.

These were situations that required the good faith necessary to achieve goals or negotiate compromise. They were also the purview of activists who brooked no bullshit, and when they did break down in discord, it was over conflicting principles and purpose. To use one’s power abusively towards the person bearing the message would have rendered everything pointless.

I don’t doubt for a minute that other women activists have been in uncomfortable or compromising situations. I suspect that like me, however, the nature of our work has created an environment less likely to tolerate the abuse prevalent in a hierarchical work force. Because of shared values and long-term egalitarian relationships with my colleagues and neighbors, hyper vigilance, and a lot of luck, I’ve been able to move far beyond a terrible abuse that happened many years ago.

I just read what Sarah Shulman posted on Facebook, and it struck home:

“A person's pain can be heard and they can be held and asked what they need. They can be validated as being in pain, their suffering can be recognized.

“At the same time—simultaneously—we can also look at the event(s) that they believe to be the source of that pain in the context of their whole lives. Because, two people can have the same experience and one can be devastated for life and the other can be "oh well", because sometimes it is not the event itself that has the inherent meaning, but the histories and characters and expectations and biologies (and other factors) that each person brings to it.”

Just Trying to Watch the Game

God, I just wanted to watch game 5 of the world series even though I don’t really follow baseball anymore and I don’t know who any of these players are (although I learned fast about the red head) and here comes George H.W. Bush, the fanny grabber, and George W. Bush, the war criminal, throwing out the first pitch. Last year we had to stomach the Cleveland Indians with their racist logo but the series was redeemed with a last minute win by the underdog Cubs and everyone was ecstatic.

What’s going to redeem this series? I used to watch with great anticipation who was going to sing the national anthem at the world series and the NBA playoffs cuz they were often great. Who can forget Marvin Gaye crooning at the 2006 NBA All-Star game, or all the times Robert Merrill sang at the Yankees’ games? Or Roseanne Barr pissing everyone off by scratching her crotch at the 1990 games? Not only has this series provided a lackluster lineup, but with NFL players taking a knee or turning their backs in protest, what we got was the sight of all the Dodgers and Astros with their hats over their hearts.

Was anybody talking about the fact that baseball players, unlike so many the NFL and NBA players like LaBron James and Steph Curry, were standing there, silent? Well, no, of course, because they’re almost all white. Where are all the black and Latino players? Then I wanted to know if anyone was talking about their absence so I went online and looked at what Dave Zirin had to say. He’s the host of the podcast the Edge of Sports and a columnist for The Nation. I didn’t find anything specifically about this year’s series, but in an article about the 2015 world series Zirin had this to say: “Here is that pitiless mirror baseball holds up: The National Pastime has become perhaps our clearest cultural reflection of how globalization, de-industrialization, and the subsequent gentrified looting of urban America have wrung so many US cities dry. Baseball, with its need for leagues, coaching, equipment, and players has suffered more than any other urban endeavor. This game that was once a cohesive glue, a “great teacher” of integration and the values of immigration, should never be a symbol of what divides us, but this is where we are. At least within the borders of the continental United States, baseball has, tragically, become the new lacrosse.”

But what really got me was his link to Chris Rock’s explanation of why there aren't any black players. You have to watch this: 

I hope all you stalwart fans enjoyed game 5, which sounds like it was pretty crazy, if way too long at over 5 hours. I’ll check out who’s singing the national anthem on Tuesday, but I’m not expecting Gil Scott Heron or Public Enemy.

Addendum: Why the fuck are they choosing the police to sing the national anthem??!! Three games that I counted and I may have missed some.

A Horrible Human Being

-->

The U.S. Electoral College chose a president in 2016 who is a horrible human being. His main motivation in running for president was opportunism. His insecurities manifest in bullying and power plays. He treats women like sexual objects and second-class citizens. He thinks the police aren’t violent enough. He and his father discriminated against people of color in their real estate deals. He is homophobic. He is stunningly ignorant and inarticulate. He doesn’t know what the word empathy means.

That almost 62 million people voted for this pathetic person can’t be ignored. What it says about America can’t be ignored. His constituencies have been scrutinized, analyzed, dissected, and dialected (I made up a new word form) by journalists, pundits, academics, liberals, and radicals until there aren’t many fingers left to point. As I said in a La Jicarita posting, if the white evangelicals “can literally believe in the Bible they can easily believe in Trump.”  Rich Republicans have every reason to vote for someone who represents the interests of the 1%. Many rust belt former Democrats were voting against Hilary Clinton.

But it’s folks in rural America I want to talk about here. This demographic obviously spills over into the evangelical and the job-loss categories, but has consistently been a conservative stronghold in American politics, a bulwark against the elitist urbanites and coastal liberals who they perceive as the “other.” Already members of the Republican Party, who else would they vote for? But the niggling question keeps getting asked, why do they continue to vote against their own self-interest?

I’ve lived in a rural area my entire adult life, but the distinguishing factor in my rural experience is color: the Hispano and Native American cultures of northern New Mexico are a very distinct demographic from the white, rural residents of the Midwest or the south. They may no less safeguard a land-based livelihood, a culture based on traditional family ties, and a certain insularity than the folks in the white, rural U.S., but because they are brown they are also the “other”—to white America in general. They have lived with discrimination, marginalization, and exploitation as colonial subjects of white America since the Europeans arrived.

Trump presented himself as the swamp cleaner and the man of the people who would make America great again. The brown people of northern New Mexico knew he meant “better for white people.” They’ve lived with broken promises and lies since the Spanish Conquest and the U.S. invasion. Unfortunately, they’ve also seen it in their own leaders and politicians, who established patrón systems to continue the exploitation. But in the community organizing in which I’ve been involved, their anger and activism is turned toward the exploiters. White Americans continue to support Trump because he keeps their anger directed at the exploited. The underpinning racism in this country cannot be ignored.

How do we combat that racism, which not only Trump embodies but the libertarian oligarchs like the Koch brothers support with their millions of dollars and the opportunistic Republican congressional majority embed in policy and law? The resistance is already there, in full force, and the focus is not on the conversion of the racists and xenophobes and evangelicals who will no doubt always be with us. The resistance lies in minority emancipation and the emergence of a fully realized multicultural society. If the Democratic Party decides to represent this movement it will survive and morph into something akin to what we see in other, more progressive societies in Europe. With or without the Dems, however, the movement continues towards inclusion and equality and against the bigots: we outnumber them, our young people will replace them, and eventually (though probably not in my lifetime), the capitalist system will implode.

Your Book That No One Reads

“In general, I try to be very honest in my memoirs. If I lose a few friendships, so what? On the other hand, I sometimes say the best way to keep a secret is to publish it, since no one reads it. My books aren’t indexed. So anyone who wants to know what I wrote about him has to read the whole thing.”

That’s Edmund White. I read this quip shortly after I published my memoir, Culture Clash: Environmental Politics in New Mexico Communities. It’s only kind of a memoir, really more of a political analysis of what went on in the 1990s over control of natural resources in the land based communities of northern New Mexico. It qualifies as a memoir, I guess, because I was not only a journalist covering these events but an activist who lived in the communities and played a role as the battles ensued.

 Unlike White, however, I didn’t lose any friends over what I said in the book—I only went after enemies—but my opinion of them went south when I realized his second point, that they weren’t going to read the book anyway. I had to nag my kids to read it (to his credit, one of them had a long conversation/critique with me about it). One of my closest friends apparently read it but then never said a word about it to me until I nagged her, too. Another one, whose book I was helping edit, has obviously never read it. Several others, whom I informed that it was coming out, never asked me about it again.

Then I published another book called Stories From Life’s Other Side: People Living on the Margins of Modern Day Society. I wrote these stories over many years as I encountered the characters who gave birth to these tales of struggle, grit, and acceptance. Same story.

So does this indicate that people don’t read or that people don’t know how to be friends or that everybody is so self-involved that you can’t really parse any meaning?

Yes, some of my friends and colleagues did read the books: several of them gave them good reviews in Taos Friction, La Jicarita, and Enchantment and several others told me they really enjoyed reading them (including John Nichols and Lucy Lippard). My thanks to all of you.

So what do I do now? Work on another book that no one is going to read?

It's All Over Now, Party Blue

 

“The rulers are interested in keeping their subjects in darkness because otherwise the injustice, the arbitrariness, the immorality, the irrationality of their own rule will be altogether too easily exposed. So from the early beginnings of man [woman] an age old conspiracy by the few against the many has been organized and kept going , because unless they do this the few cannot keep the many in subjection.”

—Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal

I stayed up late enough on election night to know what the outcome would be Wednesday morning. So I wasn’t shocked but deeply concerned for the people who are likely to suffer the most—and the soonest—if indeed Trump becomes the president in January (maybe he’ll be in jail by then): undocumented immigrants; the young people protected under the Dream Act; Black Lives Matter activists; the water protectors at Standing Rock; the people on Medicaid. This sadness was tempered only by relief at my almost empty e-mail inbox: no more DNCC pleas of “last chance,” “we’re screwed,” “don’t delete this e-mail” from Barack, Michele, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, James Carville, Brad Schneider and on and on (the relentless release of these e-mails discouraged participation instead of eliciting it, but that’s another story).

Today’s story is that the Democratic Party establishment is first and foremost to blame for Trump's election and for the Republican takeover of Congress and state governments. Ever since the New Deal the Democratic party has been leaning right towards this, our second guilded age, embracing neoliberalism as the path towards 1% rule. That’s why they fought so hard to discredit Bernie in his run for the nomination: he hammered relentlessly on economic inequality that resonated with folks across the country. He was criticized by some on the left for not addressing more directly the issues of race as well as class, but I think he felt his only path towards the nomination was to discredit HRC where she was most vulnerable as a member of the neoliberal elite who has been instrumental in disenfranchising the working class.

Maybe if Bernie had been able to pit his populist message against Trump’s so-called populist message more folks would have seen the latter not as their savior, their “blow-it-up-guy” but as the corporatist financier that he is. Maybe if Bernie, or some other progressive candidate, had been able to direct white people’s anger towards the Republican elite as well as the Democratic elite there would be less of it directed at minorities and others just as disenfranchised as they think they are.

The flip side of these “maybes” is the fact that many of the people who voted for Trump are people who would have voted for him regardless of a more powerful progressive candidate. Statistics show that this country is split right down the middle in terms of party affiliation, and even with a candidate like Trump the rank and file Republicans are going to vote Republican come hell or high water. We know why the rich Republicans vote that way: it’s in their best interests. Why so many whose interests are not represented by the Republican party is the question that many, most famously Thomas Frank, have been asking for years.

As much as I hate to acknowledge it, for fear of being labeled elitist myself (actually, I’m definitely white and privileged but not elitist), a vast group of people in this country, schooled by the Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages and Bill O’Reillys, are ignorant, misinformed, and fear-driven by identity politics and cultural transformation. They are also the products of a country that prides itself on white Protestant individualism that encourages authoritarianism and discourages empathy (many of these folks are also fundamentalists, which makes it even worse). This is where the white nationalism comes into play upon which Trump fed and flourished. These folks' interests will not be served by Republican or Democratic elites: globalization, financialization, and automation have taken their jobs away and they won’t be coming back. Their lives don’t matter, either. When you’re afraid, when you’re hurting, when you’re confused, find some other population even more vulnerable to blame: immigrants, blacks, Muslims, gays, etc. Then find someone endowed with the authority to build the wall, send them back to where they came from or strip them of their individual liberty: Donald Trump fits the bill.

I’m a Democrat only by registration so I can vote in primaries for local candidates. I voted for Bernie; I didn’t vote for Hilary. That so much of our energy and attention has been invested in this campaign for the last year and a half is obscene. The fight for justice through the ballot box is rigged from the beginning: two parties that severely limit a choice of candidates; big money super PACS that bankroll those candidates; gerrymandering of election districts to wipe out the opposition; the electoral college (HRC won the popular vote); voter suppression, ad infinitum. 

Neither will justice prevail by posting on Facebook. Many social media users were sucked into daily harangues with so-called “Friends” over who we were going to vote for, if we were going to vote, and what we should be doing if we didn’t vote. How many times did you see someone announce that he or she was purging so and so from his or her friend’s list because he or she didn’t like his or her position on HRC? Or how many times did you seen someone announce “I’m not going to post anymore political comments” because all the anger and vitriol in which everyone is engaging is not only not going to change anyone’s mind but that the sources upon which the anger and vitriol are based are unverified and often untrue. Then the next day they were back there with a post claiming that not only Wikileaks but the director of the FBI were throwing the election to Trump.

I’ve been a grassroots organizer and activist engaged in social and environmental justice my entire adult life. I know how difficult it is to fight the machine: so do groups like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, as did La Raza Unida, the Black Panthers, and SDS. In his article in Current Affairs, editor Nathan Robinson ends his take down of the Democratic Party with the immortal words of Joe Hill: “Don’t mourn, organize!” While I fantasize that once Trump gets bored having to be in the Oval Office every day and sit through cabinet meetings he’ll abdicate (he’d have to take Pence with him), Joe Hill’s exhortation is mandatory. There is no other way out.

It's Obscene

I turned on the 2016 World Series tonight anticipating, in theory, the excitement of two teams that haven’t made it this far in many, many years, and particularly, the anticipation of Chicago Cubs fans, who I saw in action this spring when I visited the Wrigley Field hood. Then the reality of the Cleveland Indians logo hit me, right there on their caps. It’s obscene. The TV is off.

I grew up in the 1950s when the Yankees dominated baseball and I learned to love the underdog by betting against my father’s assured smirk when the Pirates or White Sox lost. During the tumultuous 60s I was too busy trying to save the world to follow sports—and didn’t own a TV—but in the mid 70s, when I settled in one place—and bought a TV—I was delighted to discover the Oakland A’s and their rebellious players—Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Vida Blue—flaunt baseball decorum with their long hair and mustaches. We watched Monday night baseball in the 80s, swinging babies in cradles hanging from the beams of our handmade house. I knew most of the players on the teams we followed into the nineties, and as life got more complicated, at least always watched the playoffs and the series. I loved Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum with his flowing locks and witnessed the deplorable end of Barry Bond's career at the Giants Stadium overlooking San Francisco Bay.

Now here we are in 2016, watching and supporting however we can the largest ever gathering of Native Americans at the North Dakota Access Pipeline encampment. Many previous protests have targeted the sports world, particularly the Washington Redskins football team, which refuses to change its racist name. But tonight, the Cleveland Indians continue to display this equally racist symbol and millions of baseball fans are watching and millions of dollars are generated through this symbol. We need to do more than just turn off the TV. This really is Unf*#!ing Believable.

Addendum:

I'm checking in every now and again and commiserating with the Cubs fans (it's game 5). If the Indians win, which looks likely, I hope the pressure builds up that our national championship team has got to consign Chief Wahoo to the dustbin of history. Here's a mainstream website that says as much: http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/cleveland-indians-logo-chief-wahoo-history-controversy-demotion-removal/jgmzjuy2j5g41uozaz6alcihy.

Postscript: The Cubs won!