Still urgent and necessary. ( )

I don’t think I’ve read a better argument for America to put the project to end systemic racism at the top of the political agenda.

There would be no better signpost to the world that America has guts to lead after all.

America didn’t create slavery, and it sure didn’t create bigotry toward blacks, but when these institutions landed on American shores they surely poisoned the social experiment that came to be known as the United States of America.

Perhaps someone somewhere has suggested that Brown v. Board of Education was a sop to black Americans to make them and Africans believe that America and not the Soviet Union backed in their liberation, but I had not read that interpretation until I read it in this book.

I also see why this book very much weighed on Barak Obama’s mind with the release of the first volume of his Presidential memoirs.

He stood at the very pinnacle of American political life and proved unable to move the needle even a millimeter closer to the goal of a post-racial America.

He understood the symbolism of his election, but then it was down to work in what is surely the least manageable government on the planet. ( )

a short and powerful memoir on the state of American race relations and its religious, political, and social ties that stands as a harsh truth today. love baldwin's writing style and vivid imagery ( )

Among the most important works of the 20th century and a text that does much to explain the point where we are now. Baldwin pulls back the veneer from the mythologies of American history and Christian nationalism to show the rot underneath. Necessary medicine. ( )

So good. Baldwin takes up Christianity, Islam, communism, and the thread of American racism woven into it all. A cris de cours for conscientious people, of all ‘colors.’ To band together and stay strong. Beautifully written. Smart as hell. The warning is to avoid the fire next time—the bill due for utter lack of love all three philosophies (Christianity, Islam, communism) practice.
“It is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless." P 101 “ in any event, the sloppy and fatuous nature of American god will can never be relied upon to deal with hard problems. These have been dealt with, when they have been dealt with at all, out of necessity —and in political terms, anyway, necessity means concessions made in order to stay on top.”
P 106 “it seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.”