"In the modern State, the idea—the sense—of community has been submerged for a very long time. In the United States, the idea of community scarcely means anything anymore, as far as I can tell, except among the submerged, the ‘lowly’: the Native American, the Mexican, the Puerto Rican, the Black. These can be called communities because they are informed by their knowledge that only they of the community can sustain and re-create each other. The great, vast shining Republic knows nothing about them and cares nothing about them—recognizes their existence only in time of stress, as during a military adventure, say, or an election year, or when their dangerous situation erupts into what the Republic generally calls a ‘riot.’ And it goes without saying that these communities, incipient, wounded, or functioning, are between the carrot and the stick of the American Dream. But the American Dream can be taken as the final manifestation of the European/Western/Christian dominance. There are no more oceans to cross, no savage territories to be conquered, no more natives to be converted. (And those for sale have been bought.) In a world made hideous by man-made poverty and obscenely senseless war, it is hard to predict the future of money: when the South African miner leaves the mines, what happens to the price of gold? The present social and political apparatus cannot serve human need." James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 04:04:36 +0000
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