May. 1st, 2004
James Baldwin – The fire next time (04-021)
Number: 04-021
Title: The fire next time
Author: James Baldwin
Language: English (U.S.A.)
Year: 1963
# Pages: 141 (4210)
Category: Literature
ISBN: n/a
Any sociology student, political student or historian should read Baldwin. He has written some great novels on subjects that loads of authors don’t even dare going close. This little book consists of two articles/letters. Especially the second one, Down at the Cross, is very interesting. Baldwin explains how the Nation of Islam has become as big as they are. He meets their leaders Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. As a black author he is supposed to become part of their movement, yet he chooses not to. Reading about the Nation of Islam is always interesting, as I do not know a great deal about them. Getting more information from a black writer, critical about them, makes it even more worth to find this book.
Some quotes: “I, in any case, certainly refuse to be put in the position of denying the truth of Malcolm’s statements simply because I disagree with his conclusions, or in order to pacify the liberal conscience.”
“And when he realizes that the treatment accorded him has nothing to do with anything he has done, that the attempt of white people to destroy him – for that is what it is – is utterly gratuitous, it is not hard for him to think of white people as devils.”
And finally towards the conclusion: “If we – and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others - do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.”
Very good book, gives great insight in the race differences in the United States.
Number: 04-021
Title: The fire next time
Author: James Baldwin
Language: English (U.S.A.)
Year: 1963
# Pages: 141 (4210)
Category: Literature
ISBN: n/a
Any sociology student, political student or historian should read Baldwin. He has written some great novels on subjects that loads of authors don’t even dare going close. This little book consists of two articles/letters. Especially the second one, Down at the Cross, is very interesting. Baldwin explains how the Nation of Islam has become as big as they are. He meets their leaders Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. As a black author he is supposed to become part of their movement, yet he chooses not to. Reading about the Nation of Islam is always interesting, as I do not know a great deal about them. Getting more information from a black writer, critical about them, makes it even more worth to find this book.
Some quotes: “I, in any case, certainly refuse to be put in the position of denying the truth of Malcolm’s statements simply because I disagree with his conclusions, or in order to pacify the liberal conscience.”
“And when he realizes that the treatment accorded him has nothing to do with anything he has done, that the attempt of white people to destroy him – for that is what it is – is utterly gratuitous, it is not hard for him to think of white people as devils.”
And finally towards the conclusion: “If we – and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others - do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.”
Very good book, gives great insight in the race differences in the United States.