Tag: James Baldwin
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Racism is Wrong
It has been a just-get-it-done kind of month, during which I regret not posting on my blog. But I got some good news today that I wanted to share. The Christian Century just published another essay of mine called “I believe racism is wrong. So what?” It will be published in the May 24th print…
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What makes a man like Muhammad Ali?
In his essay, Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin wrote about a chronic disease he contracted as a young black professional after being refused service at a New Jersey diner. Hearing the racist rationale that, “we don’t serve Negroes here,” Baldwin was overcome with: “a kind of blind fever, a pounding in the skull…
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Dismantling my Privilege begins with Understanding
In his essay “The Harlem Ghetto” James Baldwin describes the 1950 American reality as a “bitterness—felt alike by the inarticulate, hungry population of Harlem, by the wealthy on Sugar Hill, and by the brilliant exceptions ensconced in universities—which has defeated and promises to continue to defeat all efforts at interracial understanding.”[1] Baldwin could just as…
Teri McDowell Ott 