James Baldwin - Going To Meet the Man

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Books, Arts

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2020

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James Baldwin (1924-1987) was a fearless artist, an uncompromising critic, a brilliant essayist, and an American who lived within his time and yet was decades ahead of it. In this episode, Jacke takes a look at Going To Meet the Man," Baldwin's provocative story of the power dynamics at play within a white Southern man who attends a lynching. (Warning: This story of racism, violence, and sexual activity is graphic and brutal. Listeners may want to exercise caution.) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to [email protected]. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	Mr. Boland, I'm sure you still meet the remark that what are the Negroes? Why aren't
0:18.2	they optimistic? They say, but it's getting so much better. They're Negro mayors. There's Negroes in all of sports, there are Negroes in politics,
0:27.1	they're even accorded the ultimate accolade of being in television commercials now.
0:39.2	I'm glad you're smiling. Is it at once getting much better and still hopeless? Well I don't think there's much hope for it, you know, to tell you the truth.
0:44.5	You know, as long as people are using this peculiar language, it's not a question of what
0:49.2	happens to the Negro here, to the black man here.
0:53.0	That's a very very question for me, you know,
0:56.0	but the real question is what's going to happen to this country.
0:58.0	I have to repeat that.
1:00.0	That's James Baldwin on the Dick Cavett show, smiling and polite, but uncompromising as well.
1:07.0	Why is the Negro problem, as it was called in those days, always presented to Negroes as if it were their problem.
1:16.0	Tell us when it's over, Dick Cave it seems to be saying.
1:20.0	We're waiting.
1:21.0	And James Baldwin says, you're framing this wrong.
1:24.2	It's not a Negro problem.
1:25.6	It's a white supremacist problem.
1:27.4	It's an American problem.
1:29.7	This isn't our problem, our black American problem to solve. It's an American problem to solve. And furthermore,
1:37.0	America isn't going to be great when black people figure out how to get better or stop complaining. It's going to be great
1:44.8	when white people address the problems they have about black people. That's
1:49.9	Baldwin's point. It's a hard one for many white people to hear. Baldwin was as
	...

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