SOUTH NEWFANE — If we as white Americans - presumed, I suppose, to be “well intentioned” toward our sisters and brothers of color -want to understand Trumpism, may I suggest we have but to read James Baldwin, who already in the 1960s and '70s had Trump's number?
In truth, he foretold Trump's coming.
Because Trump is America, writ large. No, we are not “better than that.”
I dare to say, as a white man and as one who has read Baldwin, that Trumpism is not new.
Trumpism, which may shock white liberals, is the face that America has always turned to Black America: the cruelty for cruelty's sake, the incessant lies and, yes, self-deception; the denial of any pretense of democracy and fair play; the reliance on brute force and calls to violence. Read James Baldwin, and you recognize this as the Black experience of America.
I humbly say this as a white man, and I am open to being corrected by people of color.
But I think I am not saying anything more controversial than this: white people, open your eyes. And you could do worse than look at America through Baldwin's eyes.
May I suggest The Fire Next Time or No Name in the Street, or maybe Raoul Peck's film I Am Not Your Negro? Any works by Baldwin are a good start. And let James Baldwin, like Virgil in Dante's Inferno, be your guide to the lower circles of this our America.
And then let us recognize that, as goes Black America, so go all of us. The fight for Black freedom is for the sake of all of us, of this whole country. That is where the fight begins.