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Pin drop speech4/28/2024 “The real question here, and the one I’d like you to keep in your mind as you watch this clip of James Baldwin speaking is why there was even a debate at all? As you listen to Baldwin calmly and emphatically explaining to a (primarily white) audience of British students that African Americans are indeed human just like them, and that racism is not only real, but a function of direct choices made by our entire society, never forget that the topic of this debate was seriously the question of “whether or not the American Dream has come at the expense of the American Negro” – a question that becomes repugnant in its own right once one remembers that the wealth and power of America was forged on the bloody, beaten backs of African Americans subjected to chattel slavery even without considering the open white supremacy that fuels our society to this very day.” Sadly, the real legacy of the Baldwin vs Buckley debate is that after making one of the most brilliant men ever to walk this earth defend his humanity based on the color of his skin, we still don’t have the basic moral decency and courage to live the lessons his words imparted. It was a moment that changed history and should have changed America forever. As the whole world watched, Baldwin both destroyed Buckley’s reputation as an intellectual, and imploded the supposedly logical underpinnings of casual white supremacy. Buckley, I talk briefly about both the importance of the moment both then, and today. Building on a timeless clip of James Baldwin’s argument in the 1965 Cambridge debate against William F. Please bear with me in the meantime and thanks for all your support.ĭarkness, Light, and the Dim Possibilities of Ignoranceīy the time I wrote this late November 2020 informal essay over on Media Madness, our fledgling Film Sessions feature was starting to evolve into what it has become today a discussion that not only recommends a video to watch, but seeks to move beyond the confines of that source material as well. As part of that process, I’m posting links to older content that I will never find again otherwise.Īs tedious as this activity is, it’s necessary for my archives. Editor’s note: after struggling against online censorship and some procrastinating, I’m getting around to reorganizing my website.
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