James Baldwin from Esquire's July 1968 after MLK's death:
"I think Stokely's right when he says that integration is another word, you know, the latest kind of euphemism for white supremacy. No, I don't want to be integrated into this house or any other house, especially not this burning house. I don't want to be become… like you. You, the white people. I'd rather die than become what most white people in this country have become. What one is after is something else, which is exactly what Martin was after, and this community. You know, I just want you to leave me alone. Just l-e-a-v-e-m-e-a
Full interview here: http://
Much to be learned from Baldwin's way of answering/confronting the (ridiculousness of the) questions posed to him:
"I think Stokely's right when he says that integration is another word, you know, the latest kind of euphemism for white supremacy. No, I don't want to be integrated into this house or any other house, especially not this burning house. I don't want to be become… like you. You, the white people. I'd rather die than become what most white people in this country have become. What one is after is something else, which is exactly what Martin was after, and this community. You know, I just want you to leave me alone. Just l-e-a-v-e-m-e-a
Full interview here: http://
Much to be learned from Baldwin's way of answering/confronting the (ridiculousness of the) questions posed to him:
Q. Well, several white people have died (in the riots).
BALDWIN: Several, yeah, baby, but do you know many Negroes have died?
Q. Many more. But that's why we're talking about cooling it.
BALDWIN: It is not the black people who have to cool it, because they won't.
Q. The question posed, however, was whether snipers could be classified as true revolutionaries; fire bombers, as those overwhelmed with frustration and seeking to destroy the symbols of their discontent; looters, as victims of the acquisitive itch?
BALDWIN: I have to ask you a very impertinent question. How in the world can you possibly begin to categorize the people of a community whom you do not know at all? I disagree with your classifications altogether. Those people are all in the streets for the same reason.
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Q. Do you think "cooling it" means accepting a culture within a culture, a black culture as separate?
BALDWIN: You mean, white people cooling it?
Q. Yes.
BALDWIN: White people cooling it means a very simple thing. Black power frightens them. White power doesn't frighten them. Stokely is not, you know, bombing a country out of existence. Nor menacing your children. White power is doing that. White people have to accept their history and their actual circumstances, and they won't. Not without a miracle they won't. Goodwill won't do it...
Q. But doesn't white America need instruction from…
BALDWIN: … the streets of any ghetto.
Q. But on the streets of any ghetto can you learn…
BALDWIN: Ask any black junkie what turned him into a junkie.
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Q. You feel that any people who are oppressed outside the United States are natural allies for the black Americans?
BALDWIN: Yes, From Cuba… to Angola. And don't think the American government doesn't know that. This government which is trying to free us is also determined we should never talk to each other.
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