James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)

There's a really interesting debate between Baldwin and William Buckley up on youtube. Riviting stuff: [VIDEO]

Because there is in fact no such thing as a "white person". Believe it or not, there is a coherent shared cultural identity of American black people, most of whom are descended from slaves brought here from Africa who had their original cultures stripped from them, and who belonged to a community segregated against legally into the 1970s. That those people came from several different countries on the continent of Africa is of little meaning, because their culture was deliberately cut off from its roots, and was built largely anew in the United States. Your inclination is to assume that if "black culture" is a thing, then "white culture" must also be a thing. No, that is not the case. What there is in addition to "black culture" is: * Irish-American culture, which has a museum, parades, and a holiday, * Italian-American culture, which has a museum, parades, and a holiday, * German-American culture, which has a museum and parades, * Polish-American culture, which has a museum, parades, and a holiday I can go on. The notion that there is some notional "white culture" is artificial, a lie begun in earnest in the 20th century. No, really. Before "white culture", the Anglo- and Germanic-American communities in the US targeted Italians, the Irish, and the Polish (as well as Catholics of all nationalities). When the writing appeared on the wall for end of Jim Crow, "white culture" emerged as a solidarity movement among those people prejudiced against blacks and black culture. This is

Thanks for posting this. I started teaching my first history lecture course this January and very quickly came up against what the author mentions - not only students but also teachers have a lot of trouble sustaining attention for more than 30-40 minutes of straight-ahead lecturing. It's a medium that I do think works well if the person doing it is a natural public speaker (I was watching James Baldwin's speech at Cambridge University the other day and was riveted the entire time [1]) but unfortunately there's virtually no training in public speaking provided by a typical PhD. If anything PhDs are rewarded for learning how to speak in a way that doesn't work at all in a classroom - hyper-attuned to nuance but allergic to making the kind of memorable declarative statements that students seem to want for their notes. I noticed from grading midterms that my students fixated on phrases like "the Catholic Church is the ghost of the Roman Empire" or "Cogito ergo sum" but had trouble with things we spent a lot more time on, like the difference between natural philosophy and science. I haven't taught a digital history-focused class yet but have been experimenting with interspersing my lectures with class periods where the students research an historical topic in groups and then present their findings to the class. One unexpected benefit I've noticed from doing this is that the act of physically getting up and moving around the classroom, then standing up to present seems to do wonde

This is a pretty weak article with a smarmy attitude and mostly just a hit piece on Buckley (who I certainly have no love for) and a lionization of Baldwin. It's also filled with quite a few misleading, if not actually false, statements. See the paragraph mentioning Malcom X for an example. Nonetheless, it's interesting to watch old episodes of Firing Line on YouTube. Buckley doesn't generally come across as the smarter person, but the guests themselves are usually worth watching. The show is a calm, rational discussion between people with diametrically opposed worldviews. This seems almost unthinkable in the shouting match, tribalistic media we have today. [VIDEO]

Also watch Baldwin debate Buckley: [VIDEO] (And as an aside, if you haven't had your fill of Buckley after that, watch Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal ) I recently came across an opinion piece Baldwin wrote for the NYT in 1967. I won't try to summarize it because it's short enough and I can't do it justice. [LINK]

I know only pieces of his life, but whenever a video or audio clip of Baldwin pops up, I listen voraciously. He is articulate in a way that seems to blend the cerebral with the emotive. He seems to summon forth both Maya Angelou and Christopher Hitchens; The level of articulateness is so rare. I wish I had him on tap as a podcast, ... endlessly ruminating. If you want a slice.. [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]