11/18 Reading Response

         After watching the Netflix documentary I Am Not Your Negro (2017) directed by Raol Peck, the concept of hope was one theme, among others, that stood out to me (once again). Through this lens of hope, I found myself connecting this source to the video lecture by Dr. Tricia Rose, “How Structural Racism Works”. For me, this connection is most salient in both the beginning and ending of the documentary. To start, the documentary begins with a clip from 1968 from the Dick Cavett Show. During this clip, the host asks James Baldwin a series of questions, such as “why aren’t [black people] optimistic?” and “is it at once getting much better and still hopeless [for black people]?” The second question, paired with Baldwin’s initial response (i.e. “I don’t think there is much hope for it”, the “it” I believe referring to black people’s sense of optimism), mirrors Dr. Rose’s response at the end of her lecture when answering a question that asks about “the next opportunity [for progress]?”. Similar to Baldwin’s response, Dr. Rose’s reply suggests that maintaining a sense of optimism, a sense of hope, is near impossible for folx due to the widespread scale of systemic inequity across multiple areas of life. 

        I believe this connection between I Am Not Your Negro and Dr. Rose’s lecture is furthered when the documentary ends with a separate clip of Baldwin explaining why he is “forced to be an optimist” (1:27:54). In my opinion, Baldwin’s explanation here reframes what we have already learned from Dr. Rose’s lecture: that the livelihood of black Americans is heavily influenced by inequitable structures that benefit those from a white demographic and pigeonhole those from a non-white demographic. Thus when Baldwin says, “the future of the Negro in this country is precisely as bright or as dark as the future of the country” (1:28:18), he is saying that the well-being of a black American is wholly dependent on America’s continuation or disruption of inequitable systems that criminalize black people. According to Dr. Rose, “we have a lot of power to change the public stories we tell” and by questioning and unlearning widely held beliefs that are acted out on an institutional level we can begin to change our country’s narrative, and by association, treatment of people of color. 

        Furthermore, I see a connection between Baldwin’s final reflection and the Netflix documentary13th and “Examined Life - Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor” (2010). Specifically, when Baldwin implores his audience, namely white Americans from both North and South regions of the country, to ask themselves “why it was necessary to have a ‘Nigger’ in the first place” I believe Baldwin is saying two very important things (1:28:45). First, I believe acknowledging that white America needed to invent a system that portrayed people of color as those of value only for labor makes clear what we learned from 13th--that the American economy has been, and continues to be, dependent upon free labor of those that our system chooses to criminalize. Second, I believe the posing of this question reveals an insidious reality that complicates the concept that Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor put forth: that we live in an interdependent society where we require help from one another in order to be successful. To use Baldwin’s words, America“invented” a system of slavery because we needed “help” to create a whole new world, however rather than rely on one another to provide assistance freely when it was needed most, America instead developed a system of slavery to ensure our country’s needs were always met by those we deemed as chattel. To be sure, the invented structure that Baldwin describes is likely not what Butler and Taylor envisioned when reflecting on body politics, nevertheless when putting the two sources in concert with one another, the idea of “help” and being “interconnected” is complicated because it proves that America is indeed a country where people rely on others, but historically has chosen to use systems of power to oppress others into livelihoods of indentured servitude, rather than create systems that are fair and responsive to the needs of others by seeing one another’s humanity first (as Butler and Taylor suggest we should do).

        To end, I share a final resource that furthers Baldwin’s final thoughts about America’s “needs”: The 1619 Project published by The New York Times. Similar to I Am Not Your Negro and 13th, The 1619 project is a source that aims to unveil the history behind America’s development as the country we know today and how that development is intimately tied to our nation’s need for/reliance on slavery. For those who enjoy podcasts, I recommend “Episode 1: The Fight for a True Democracy” of 1619 as a place to begin.