James Baldwin' writing, in No Name in the Street, speaks for itself. Examples of his beautiful writing:
But for power truly to feel itself menaced, it must somehow sense itself in the presence of another power - or, more accurately, an energy - which it has not known how to define and therefore does not really know how to control.
The powerless, by definition, can never be "racists," for they can never make the world pay for what they feel or fear except by the suicidal endeavor which makes them fanatics or revolutionaries, or both; whereas, those in power can be urbane and charming and invite you to hose which they know you will never own.
The truth which frees black people will also free white people, but this is a truth which white people find very difficult to swallow.
White people, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded- about themselves the world they live in. White people have managed to get through entire lives in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky...
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
For if it is difficult to be released from the stigma of blackness, it is clearly at least equally difficult to surmount the delusion of whiteness.
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
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