The Problem with "Whiteness"

Lessons on Nemesis from James Baldwin on his ninety-ninth Birthday…

Portrait of James Baldwin, 2017-2018

Our habitual compartmentalization has meant that Baldwin, one of the Twentieth Century’s most important voices is dismissed as “merely a Black writer….” He was, and all it takes is to look at what he wrote to see this, writing for all of us. In my estimation he is one of the most significant writers and thinkers of the Twentieth Century. If we are to accomplish anything we must stand on his shoulders.

His warnings are not of what will happen to “White America” as a result of what its victims might do; but what “White America” does, has done, and continues to do to itself with all the violence that this unleashes upon the world at large.

The Earth.

What I’ve learned from James Baldwin is that this is the core of the problem with Whiteness. The entire worldview of white supremacy boils down to an inability, more than that, a refusal to mature. The conspiracy of every authoritarian, fascist, Nazi worldview is driven by the vicarious frisson in sharing this “bold” lie with other damaged souls who can then feel and share an ersatz strength, a fantasy of their own power. The brutality required to suppress one’s vitality to hold such beliefs ends up being the energizing force behind the ways in which they project their own lacks onto the other and then act out their self-destructive tendencies by destroying any signs of vitality wherever they may find them.

The fact that these outbreaks of hate always end in a bunker with one final willful choice, between cyanide and a Luger in a desperate attempt to evade the revenge they expect from their enemies. In reality they are desperately attempting to escape from the only truth they cannot avoid. Their guilt. Their unspeakable crimes….

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Everything is in everything.

We inhabit a world created by Thought.

None of this can change without a change in the ways in which we go about living. Changes made from the inside out.

Every call for a Utopia is no more than a wish that the world would be organized to fit our prejudices. That we remain trapped, thinking only in terms of ideas, ideologies, plans and Utopias; is directly linked to our stunted condition. These are immature notions. We so easily glide past the fact that if somehow any Utopia is forced into being it is bound to produce its opposite. Any pressure against or for one side of any binary we may insist on organizing our lives around will force its opposite to resist it. This is the way binaries are processed by reality. Those who insist on defending separation bring about their own demise through their “opposite.” Baldwin chronicled his realizations as he lived through his disillusionment at what exile could accomplish. There is no place outside our Predicament.

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Nemesis is elastic; its power – yes, there is power in the universe – belongs to the Universe. To assume power to be in “our hands” is Hubris. The Power exerted by Nemesis expands or contracts mirroring the level of Hubris we insist on projecting. There is no way to overpower Nemesis. Conversely, Nemesis falls away of its own accord when we let go of Hubris. If we can begin to understand this fundamental fact of life we drop all the posturing and buried complicity and we align ourselves with Life.

Our reward?

We get to live.

And then we die.

Fighting Nemesis doesn’t bring is that immortality our billionaire overlords are so enamored of. We all die anyway. It’s just that in the meantime we end up destroying much of what’s made Earth a living miracle and, in the meantime, we remain at best undead.

This is the kind of conversation we might have if we were integrated adults.*

I do believe this is possible….

*The term integration covers many layers of meaning. We tend to think of it as simply “accepting” minorities into “mainstream society.” The integration I’m referring to is an integration of the self, moving from the stunted, damaged psyches we find ourselves having inherited from our families and our society towards an integration of our whole beings. This process cannot be legislated. It cannot be forced. We either take it on as if our lives depend on it or we don’t. This is at the core of what James Baldwin brought to our attention over the course of his life. His insights, his strengths, growing out of his own journey of self-integration coupled with his love for all that is alive. Deeply wounded, he refused to succumb to the easy out of simply returning hatred to those who hate. His warnings of where this path was leading have been confirmed by the state we find ourselves in today.

If we do find ways to integrate our selves, and meet each other on this basis, we begin to find that our traps are not as invincible as Thought would have us believe. We begin to find ways to relate, that is ways to be alive…. An early sign of this is a wholehearted rejection of any authoritarian impulse.

Happy Birthday Mr. Baldwin!