The Fire Next Time
Ratings167
Average rating4.6
I started this review last night, but the book left me speechless. Having thought about it for a while, I think I’m now ready to give a few words. This is 106 pages of raw emotion about race relations in America. It doesn’t come across as a rant. It’s two letters, one to his nephew and one to the American people. Both letters are powerful.
Last week I read “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. So yes, I’m in my feelings too. Everything that these two men have said is still relevant today, and it hurts. I recommend both books. Both are 5-star-reads. I have nothing else to say.
Breathtaking insights into America's ongoing identity crisis. Still completely relevant critiques of the current political order and the failure to recon with our past and to end white supremacy.
Wrong book at the wrong time for this one. I'm not sure why I was slogging so hard through a book that's barely 100 pages, but I was struggling to pick it up, and then stay awake while reading it. I still have another Baldwin collection on my TBR, plus some of his fiction, and hopefully one of those will work for me better and will make me want to revisit this at a later time.
prophetic and, like all prophecy, challenging - but elegant, and very much worth your time
“Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them.”
—James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
this book is divided into two parts/essays. the first one is Baldwin's letter to his nephew where he expresses the contemporary situation of US racial politics in an easy, raw and personal manner. The second essay was more complicated and heavier than the first where he talked about his rise and fall from being a religious Christian and how religious institutions preach hate psychology to manipulate the wounded souls which also complimented his visit to Elijah Muhammad where he once again got close association with the hypocrisy and double-faced reality of the supposed unifying organisation. I was also glad to see that even though Baldwin lived in an age when many renowned personalities were sexist, he recognised the error and considered the inequality unjustifiable.
Protect your women: a difficult thing to do in a civilization sexually so pathetic that the white man's masculinity depends on a denial of the masculinity of the blacks. Protect your women: in a civilization that emasculates the male and abuses the female, and in which, moreover, the male is forced to depend on the female's bread-winning power.
A remarkable book. Decades later, Baldwin still remarks right on the mark (though I suspect he wishes he wasn't).
Un livre dont j'ai entendu parler à deux ou trois reprises ces derniers mois et que j'ai enfin pris la peine de lire. Je ne le regrette absolument pas, tant cette lecture a eu un effet coup de poing pour moi.
Dans une première courte lettre adressée à son neveu adolescent, puis une seconde lettre plus longue, l'écrivain noir américain James Baldwin évoque, au début des années 1960, la question raciale aux Etats-Unis. C'est passionnant, instructif, incisif, choquant, et cela fait forcément réfléchir l'homme blanc que je suis. C'est certainement l'une de mes lectures marquantes de l'année 2020.
The audio by Jesse Martin was a treat for the ears. I have meant to read this for years, and now having read it, really wish that I had read it first in high school and then could be re-reading it for relevancy over the years. Definitely will try to correct that error of letting high school me down by talking about it with high school students now. I took so many notes as there are so many passages that (rather horrifyingly) apply exactly to today's cultural and political climate without any change in 50 years. I will need to get a physical copy to return to.
James Baldwin was one of those rare people that, upon finding himself in the middle of a storm, could see clearly through the darkness. He could understand the cause of the storm, the direction it was headed in, and what it would take to escape it. Fifty seven years ago Baldwin looked and saw that America was morally and spiritually sick.
His description of the inequality experienced by blacks in America and the culpability of whites in their suffering is sharp and lucid. He implicates both overt racists as well as the white liberals who called themselves allies of blacks but whose “profound desire [is] not to be judged by those who are not white.”
Today we are faced with a choice when we read Baldwin. The easy interpretation is to read The Fire Next Time, become even more angry at America and its institutions and conclude that since racism continues to exist today, that nothing has changed—the situation today is just as bad ever. On the other hand, the more difficult, but I believe necessary, way of reading Baldwin is use him as a reference of what America was 57 years ago, then to compare that to America now to determine the actual trajectory we are on.
Baldwin foresaw two possible futures, the first is the one that awaits us If we decide that nothing has changed in the last six decades. In that case his prophetic voice warned us that: “the intransigence and ignorance of the white world might make that vengeance [as described by Malcolm X] inevitable—a vengeance that does not really depend on, and cannot really be executed by, any person or organization, and that cannot be prevented by any police force or army: historical vengeance, a cosmic vengeance, based on the law that we recognize when we say, ‘Whatever goes up must come down.'”
This is not what Baldwin wanted for America. Instead, his vision was that:
“If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.”
Baldwin demanded that we “accept ourselves as we are, [so that] we might bring new life to the Western achievements, and transform them. The price of this transformation is the unconditional freedom of the Negro; it is not too much to say that he, who has been so long rejected, must now be embraced, and at no matter what psychic or social risk.” Baldwin accurately saw that “The price of the liberation of the white people is the liberation of the blacks—the total liberation, in the cities, in the towns, before the law, and in the mind.”
It is impossible to ignore that progress on the path to radical racial freedom over the last 57 years has been slow, and has not been without major setbacks. What we must ask ourselves now is, have we exhausted all options for moving forward? If all hope is not lost, it's our obligation to keep trying, to do better, to change and improve. The alternative is to abandon hope and leave our fate to the cosmic vengeance Baldwin warned of.
This is such a powerful and well written book. I found myself highlighting almost every line. I think I'll have ro reread or several times. I done feel like I'm capable of understanding it all but it had affected me and opened my eyes.
It's difficult to summarize James Baldwin. In The Fire Next Time, he speaks a lot about religion, discussing Christianity and the Nation of Islam, and how both relate to white supremacy. He also picks apart American exceptionalism.
However, I was surprised by the amount of hope and optimism underlying bleak points about denial and complacence. I'll need to revisit this in the future. Though short, it's jam-packed.
Essential. Not simply the voice of a black man in America but a man at odds with himself, his family, and the world presented to him; an artist who never wanted to be. I may never understand how it felt to write this, but I'll never forget how it felt to read it.
So hard to read this AFTER “We were Eight Years in Power” and still Baldwin, such a good writer. (I asked my book club how they felt “Between the World and Me” fit in the traditions of black writing like Baldwin and they were kinda “Meh?” but now I feel like I should #blackoutreading the whole dang year. )
Short Review: Like many books I need to read this again. I listened to it on audiobook (by far cheapest option) in a single sitting after reading When We Were Eight Years in Power and realizing that Ta-Nehesis Coates consciously modeled his Between the World and Me on this book.
The first short essay in The Fire Next Time was a letter addressed to Baldwin's nephew on the 100th anniversary of the emancipation proclamation. But it was the much longer essay that revolved around Baldwin's relationship to faith and how various faiths related to anti-racism. His early status as a ‘boy preacher' Baldwin thinks saved him from drugs or crime or other things that would have derailed his life and allowed him to become a writer. But he grew out of Christian faith because of its inability to actually believe and do its own message. He moved on to Nation of Islam and a consciously black power message that from a different place also was unable to solve the problem of racism and discrimination.
This is worth reading in part because it is clearly dated, but also still so very relevant. My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/fire-next-time/
I read Ta-Nehisi Coates's [b:Between the World and Me 25489625 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451435027s/25489625.jpg 44848425] last year, a book that obviously draws a lot of inspiration from this one (including, I think, its title?). I'd recommend this book to anyone. It's a very short read, and it's very insightful. On top of that, while it's always worth noting that the abused have no obligation to consider the feelings of their abuser, Baldwin's words here are sympathetic and perhaps forgiving. I want to say more but everything I write just sounds dumb. Just read it, it's short.
James Baldwin's words, not the least bit diminished after 55 years, cut the American dream — which is by necessity and consequence of history the White American Dream — down to the bone. He was a man who could easily be seen as bitter and merciless but was in fact simply and courageously after the truth.
Baldwin's letter to his nephew serves as an emotional and gripping preface for the book. The letter of warning and advice one can only assume served as inspiration for Ta-Nehisi Coates' nearly as powerful “Between the World and Me.”
In the book's main essay, through personal reminiscences, historical examples and analysis of current events (the book was published in 1962), Baldwin dispels the illusion that African Americans can expect to be afforded equal rights and exposes the reality — that laws, amendments and court rulings made for political expediency are powerless to institute change as long as we hold on to our false perceptions — and by we, I mean liberals and conservatives alike.
Baldwin was acquainted with virtually every major civil rights figure of the time, including Malcom X, Martin Luther King and Elijah Muhammed, the founder of the Nation of Islam. (Seek out the Oscar-nominated documentary, “I Am Not Your Negro” as a terrific introduction to Baldwin.) He describes in fascinating detail a meeting he had with the controversial religious leader. The author excoriates Black people in America who see their African and Islamic heritage as the foundation for a better future. He sees only false hope in that school of thought. In explanation, he says Black Americans are unique, having been torn from their history in Africa, enslaved and branded as less than fully human in this country, a state that continued to his day and we can easily argue continues on.
Further, he accuses the Nation of Islam and other well meaning movements designed to instill Black pride of inventing false histories. “In order to change a situation one has first to see it for what it is. ... An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.”
Baldwin's plea is to study history and understand where the truth and falsehoods lie. The reality, is hard for us to take — impossible for most:
“The American Negro is a unique creation; he has no counterpart anywhere, and no predecessors. ... It is a fact that every American Negro bears a name that originally belonged to the white man whose chattel he was. I am called Baldwin because I was either sold by my African tribe or kidnapped out of it into the hands of a white Christian named Baldwin, who forced me to kneel at the foot of the cross. I am, then, both visibly and legally the descendant of slaves in a white, Protestant country, and this is what it means to be an American Negro, this is who he is — kidnapped, pagan, who was sold like an animal and treated like one, who was once defined by the American Constitution as ‘three-fifths' of a man, and who, according to the Dred Scott decision had no rights that a white man was bound to respect.”
At the same time, he warns Black people against causing suffering in ways that they themselves have suffered. “Whoever debases others is debasing himself,” he writes.
Baldwin's answer is to face reality. The institutionalized crime against Black people is not just a civil rights issue; it's a fault line in the foundation of our society that will ultimately pull us all down if not addressed. If we all accept the truth and face these tragic injustices, at least we might have a start. When we all accept the truth, at least we all stand on common ground.