“The Fire Next Time” is, Unfortunately, “The Fire This Time”

In “The Fire Next Time,” James Baldwin testifies to a hope that the United States has still yet to realize. Fulfillment of this hope—that black people might be free from the perpetual state of fear imposed upon them—is only possible after a total confrontation with reality. Through headlines and social media, tweets and election fraud, reality seems hard to find. To redeem it would be a miracle.

But as Baldwin illustrates, the collective black character, defying all instruction to condemn itself as much of society does, testifies to the defiance of odds. Black people have the capacity for compassion even in the face of fear, which, for a black person living in a white nation, is not an emotion but a state of being. The phrase “white nation” is not to highlight the fact that the majority of the United States is white. “White nation” is the title of a country in which the American dream is only possible for white people. White kids grow up hearing the mantra follow your dreams. But this encouragement, for black kids, is naive, to say the least. As someone classified from birth as “the other,” Baldwin grew up confronting persistent threats to his faith in humanity.  But he never lost that faith.

First, society proved to him that his parents could not protect him. How could they protect their child when they, themselves, had to think only of themselves in order to survive? His peers similarly proved themselves unavailable. After spending energy meticulously curating an outfit, a smile, a stride—all in the name of appearing less threatening—advocacy was not only impossible, but it would have been trivial. It would have served no purpose before a white audience, who thought (and thinks) they possessed an intrinsic quality that black people must work to absorb. This characteristic, this imaginary superiority, is historically essential to white identity and obliterates any possibility that black people may live freely.

After these consecutive, unjust but inevitable disappointments, what remained? For Baldwin, God’s love. The absence of safety in corporeal terms leads people to spiritual refuge. Christianity, then, offers security. But after converting to loyal disciple, after giving sermons himself and making every effort to eschew sin, the church proved corrupt. Too many priests sneakily kept donations, too many Christians condemned those who lived by different doctrines, for him to accept the church as a beacon of hope. His faith in humanity had not been restored and fear was all the more persistent. The fear of society made him flee to God, and in his refuge, he discovered a new phobia—one stronger and more poisonous than the white officer outside: fear of himself. His commitment to God and the avoidance of sin made him deny his own feelings, refute any instinct that contained a hint of unholiness, and consequently, fulfill his country’s wish for him—that he condemn and reject his identity.

Not only did his fear fail to diminish, but his intellect proved to him that God, or at least the one that the Christian church taught him to worship, was no less racist than the bigots standing between him and freedom. According to the scripture, which he so avidly tried to worship, he was a descendant of Ham—sentenced to slavery. That God for whom he gave up his Sundays was white. Have you ever seen the alleged son of God, historically Middle Eastern or North African but most definitely brown, painted as anything but blue eyed and pale-skinned? Neither had James.

This deception made it easy for Baldwin to empathize with Black Muslims, who believed that white people are “devils.” This belief is only logical. For white people, collective action has proved for centuries to be racist and therefore evil. But Baldwin refused to accept this undeniably practical categorization. He chose pity, instead, because it was the only detour from hate. He pitied the fact that white people’s only claim to self-worth was the dignity that white privilege offers. He pitied white people’s inability to see black people as humans, rather than as a political object to paste on our liberal flags. He pitied the fact that we live in a black country, but white people still think it is white. Ultimately, he pitied their (our) denial of reality. As he wrote, “white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them” (Baldwin). Black people remind us of death in the context of white people’s inexcusably constructed history, their systemic racism which they try to conceal in policy change and goodhearted but passive statements. These attempts are arguably nothing more than efforts to redeem national—white—conscience.

I know that I am part of the problem, and I am not the first white liberal to ask “what can I do?” By posting activist quotes and making “politically woke” assertions on my Instagram, I am doing nothing revolutionary. I am merely proving my own morality to myself and my followers. But I refuse to believe that there is nothing I can do. The collective black character, defying all instruction to condemn itself as others do, testifies to the defiance of odds.

It will be impossible to take action to mend racial divisions if we do not first understand the superfluity of such divisions. As Baldwin writes, “Color is not a human or a personal reality: it is a political reality… one must be careful not to take refuge in any delusion—and the value placed on the color of skin is forever a delusion.” He demands that white Americans accept the fact that black people are responsible for the strides of American identity. Knowing this—acknowledging that the United States is a black nation working in white favor—we must use this favor for a greater national goal. Only when we accept the issue of race as a national issue, do we confront reality. The systemic discrepancies operating against black people might benefit me but they poison our nation’s identity. Only by accepting this reality and dedicating ourselves to dismantling such structures do we redeem America’s conscience.