I Am Not Your Negro By James Baldwin

 

The author James Baldwin's documentary film "I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO," aims to reckon with the lives and deaths of Martin, Medgar, and Malcolm. He wanted to share the dreadful journeys of these leaders to expose the racism that is ravaging the country, the United States of America.

As a speaker in one of the debates, Mr. Baldwin reiterates what Mr. Robert Kennedy mentioned, "It was conceivable that in 40 years in America we might have a Nigger president." Mr. Baldwin answers, "That sounded like a very emancipated statement, I suppose. To white people, we are not in Harlem when this statement was first heard. Not here and possibly will never hear the laughter and the bitterness in the school which is taken was greeted on the point of view of Harlem barbershop. Bobby Kennedy only got here yesterday, and he is already on his way to the presidency. We have been here before 100 years, and now he tells us that maybe in 40 years if you are good, you might become president. Let me put it this way in my very literal point of view. "The harbors and the ports and the railroads other. This country the economy, especially southern states could not conceivably be what it has become if they had not had and do not still have indeed and for so long for many generations of cheap labor,"

The message by Bobby Kennedy is an echo of the racial divide and racism. It gives a message that black people did not belong in American political society and had no business wielding power over the white people in the 1960s. This must have been frustrating for the African Americans it has been a century after emancipation and yet they could not exercise the basic human right, the right to vote. This reminds me of an article from the New York times that describes Dr. King’s speech about what it was to be black in America in 1963 and the “shameful condition” of race relations a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/us/the-lasting-power-of-dr-kings-dream-speech.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article&region=Footer

 

The author James Baldwin also pointed out that the state like Alabama from the south benefited economically because of the cheap labor. In retrospect, this scenario depicts capitalism. In an article Understanding Capitalism, by Vivek Chibber, she explained that “Capitalism is not just a collection of individuals, but individuals grouped in social classes. She added that “Capitalists are driven to maximize profits. But to succeed, they typically must wage constant war on their own employees. What every employer tries to achieve is to produce as cheaply as possible and to squeeze as much as she can out of her workers for every dollar, she gives them.”  The cotton plantations profited from the free and low-cost labors of the African American farmworkers in plantations.

 

Another quote that stood up in my mind was “Until that moment comes when we the Americans. We the American people can accept the fact that I must accept for example that my ancestors are both white and black. On that continent, we are trying to forge a new identity that we need each other. I am not an object of missionary of charity. I am one of the people who built the country. Until this moment there is scarcely any hope for the American dream because the people who are denied participation in it by their very presence wreck it. Now that is being spoken about the fact that in 100 years finally through whatever the causes have been in history and most of them have been because of oppression. The people have strongly and fully taken the bit in their teeth. They are asking absolutely no quarter from anyone, but I do say that the bulk of the interpretation of whether this thing is going to end successfully and joyously or is going to end disastrously lays very heavily. But the white community it weighs very heavily with the profiteers it lays very heavily with the vested interests. It lays very heavily with a great middle stream in this country of people who have refused to commit themselves or even have the slightest knowledge that these things have been going on.”

 

In my opinion, the quote talks about implicit bias because some of the whites are unaware of the attitudes and stereotypes that are labeled to the black community and one example of these are white people who will frequently associate criminality with black people without even realizing they are doing it. Racism is a social idea that is still evolving. When slavery was abolished in 1865, racism still exists in contemporary time like racism in housing, school systems, legal systems, financial institutions, criminal justice, and even in media.

 

Tricia Rose in a forum stated that “Structural racism is not just the past that has a legacy that's waning in the present. It has a present formulation, so it is historical, yes, but it is also present tense. There are cultural elements to it that mean it has to do with the way we talk about race. We get that that it helped produce not just policies, but it is institutions and policies we see in government. The policy we see it in corporations and its educational institutions and of course it is also interpersonal.” Commencement Forum: Tricia Rose '93 Ph.D., "How Structural Racism Works" | Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America | Brown University