Misplaced blame

James Baldwin (1924-1987) was a gay African-American writer who moved to Paris in 1948 to escape the prejudice against blacks and gays and to be able to see himself and his experience through a lens from a less tainted perspective.

His 1956 novel Giovanni's Room is an early homoerotic novel that has become a classic; it was one of my first encounters with something in print that hinted that maybe my own homoerotic longings were actually, possibly something real about me, rather than just a distortion of normality. Other novels dealt with race equally evocatively.

Through the 50s, 60s and 70s, Baldwin became an important voice, not only as a novelist but as an essayist and searingly focused social critic of conditions in his native land. Today's AJC reviews a new collection of his non-fiction, and it reminded my why I found him so compelling in those early years.

In a speech he made in 1963, "We Can Change the Country," he penetrates to the heart of several of our controversies here in 2010. At that time, he was addressing racial prejudice and whose problem is it:

"There has never been in this country a Negro problem. I have never been upset by the fact that I have a broad nose, big lips and kinky hair. You got upset. And now you must ask yourself why.

And then, this:

"I, for example, do not bring down property values when I move in. You bring them down when you move out."

What a fresh, concise statement of the problem.

Now let's apply that to gay marriage and muslim mosques in our neighborhoods.

Ralph