The Cross of Redemption
Few writers have articulated the role of The Other as passionately or eloquently as James Baldwin. A gay black man born impoverished in pre-Civil Rights-era Harlem, Baldwin wrote church sermons before moving on to the secular world of fiction. This background gave him many angles from which to analyze and attack his outsider status. The essays compiled in The Cross of Redemption show that while Baldwin was committed to pulling back the curtain on the forces he felt were manipulating America鈥檚 problems, he was also very serious about closing the gap between those in power and the disenfranchised. This new collection shows that he was willing to take on black, white, rich, or poor to see that happen.
Even as Martin Luther King Jr. eventually shifted his focus from racism to the questions of economy and class, Baldwin too 鈥� as can clearly be seen in these previously uncollected writings 鈥� thought in bigger economic terms, framing 鈥渢he Negro problem鈥� as merely a symptom of the American attraction to empty consumerism and violence.
This collection, which includes book reviews, speeches, essays, forewords, and letters, often approaches the issue through an artist鈥檚 lens. In the first essay, 鈥淢ass Culture and the Creative Artist: Some Personal Notes,鈥� Baldwin posits that the acquisition of art or artistic experiences has become more sought after than the information or experience itself. One can only imagine how horrified Baldwin would have been by 21st-century reality TV and the things people will do for a taste of 鈥� or even the appearance of 鈥� money. 鈥淭he people who run the mass media and those who consume it are really in the same boat,鈥� wrote Baldwin.鈥淭hey must continue to produce things they do not really admire, still less love, in order to continue buying things they do not really want, still less need.鈥�
Randall Kenan, who edited the collection, is clearly a Baldwin fan 鈥� he wrote a biography about Baldwin in 1993 and, like Baldwin, he is also a black, gay male 鈥� but Kenan is not shy about pointing out how harsh Baldwin鈥檚 tone could sometimes be. Nowhere was this more pronounced, Kenan mentions in the introduction, than in his excessively critical review of Richard Wright鈥檚 鈥淣ative Son,鈥� which Baldwin proclaimed to be as stereotypical as 鈥淯ncle Tom鈥檚 Cabin.鈥� Wright, who had introduced Baldwin to New York鈥檚 literary elite, was very hurt and the review ruined their professional relationship.
Kenan does a relatively good job of selecting material that highlights Baldwin鈥檚 extremely nuanced opinions. To the casual reader, he might simply sound angry. Between the lines, however, it鈥檚 evident that the anger is born of love. Baldwin saw himself as holding up a mirror to America to provoke change.
Kenan also draws attention to Baldwin鈥檚 urbane use of language. Baldwin clearly enjoyed manipulating the heights and depths of the English language to prove a point. In 鈥淲hy I Stopped Hating William Shakespeare,鈥� Baldwin wrote, 鈥淚 was resenting, of course, the assault on my simplicity ... but I feared him, too ... because in his hands, the English language became the mightiest of instruments. No one would ever write that way again.鈥�
Baldwin did not write like Shakespeare, but he wields his words with a similar power. They can caress like a hug, as they do in 鈥淭he Fight: Patterson and Liston.鈥� He writes with great affection toward boxer Sonny Liston, who was often vilified in the media as a thug and a discredit to blacks. It鈥檚 as if he wanted the article to be a salve to the fighter鈥檚 reputation.
Or his words can bludgeon a subject, as in his review of 鈥淭he Sure Hand of God鈥� by Erskine Caldwell. Baldwin excoriated the book, writing that it 鈥渋s almost impossible to review, largely, I suspect, because it is almost impossible to take seriously.鈥� He continued, 鈥淯nless we hear from [Caldwell] again in accents more individual, we can leave his bones for that literary historian of another day who may perhaps define and isolate that virus in our organism which has thus far proved so deadly to the growth of our literature in general and our writers in particular.鈥�
One of the most compelling pieces in 鈥淭he Cross of Redemption鈥� is one in which Baldwin recalls a 1960s conversation with Robert F. Kennedy (鈥淔rom Nationalism, Colonialism, and the United States: One Minute to Twelve: A Forum鈥�). Kennedy told Baldwin that one day a black man could be president. Baldwin seemed offended by the possibility that an African-American would even want to become president of a country that he saw in moral free fall.
鈥淸W]hat really exercises my mind,鈥� he wrote, 鈥渋s just what kind of country he鈥檒l be President of.鈥�
Stacie Williams is an intern in the Monitor鈥檚 library.
