"...I am tired not only of being told to wait, but of people saying, "What should I do?" They mean, "What should I do about the Negro problem, what should I do for you?" There is nothing you can do for me. There is nothing you can do for Negroes. It must be done for you. One is not attempting to save twenty-two million people. One is attempting to save an entire country, and that means an entire civilization and the price for that is high. The price for that is to understand oneself. The price for that, for example, is to recognize that most of us, white or black, have arrived at a point where we do not know what to tell our children. Most of us have arrived at a point where we still believe and insist on and act on the principle, which is no longer valid, that this is such and such an optimum, that our choice is the lesser of two evils, and this is no longer true. Gonorrhea is not preferable to syphilis. The time has come, it seems to me, to recognize that the framework in which we operate weighs on us and is about to kill us. It is time it ask hard questions and to take very rude positions..." James Baldwin, from The Artists Struggle for Integrity. (1963)
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 07:05:34 +0000
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