As I watched the documentary by Raoul Peck I was captured by James
Baldwin's poignant words at the close of the picture. How riveting were the
words, even as Mr. Baldwin spoke those decades ago, the force behind it still echoes through time to be just as relevant today.
Commentary by James Baldwin from the documentary:
I am NOT YoUr NIGGER
You cannot lynch me and keep me in ghettos without
becoming something monstrous yourselves.
And furthermore you give me a terrifying advantage, you
never had to look at me, I had to look at you.
I know more about you then you know about me.
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing
can be changed until it is faced.
History is not the past, it is the present.
We carry our history with us. We are history, If we
pretend otherwise,
we literally are criminals.
I attest to this, the world is not white, it never was
white
Cannot be white
White is a metaphor for power
"What white people have to do is try to find out in their
own hearts why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place? Because
I'm not a nigger, I am a man. But if you think I'm a nigger it means you need
him. The question you have to ask yourself, the white population of this
country. If I'm not the nigger and you invented him, you have to find out why?
And the future of the country depends on that."
James Baldwin
