Why does Baldwin assert that white people are not free, and how is their freedom tied to that of Black people?
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For racialized bodies, navigating a white world means facing the reality that “all aspects of our lives—our institutions, practices, ideals, and laws—were defined and tailored to fit the needs, wants, and concerns of white folk.” (MacMullan 7) There is a limited breadth of progress that could be achieved through the work of minority communities before its deceleration, without mentioning the barriers and hurdles along the way. True liberation can only be achieved when those upholding the dominion are freed from “a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.” (Baldwin 22) James Baldwin explains to his nephew how White America, through its expert dissemination of hegemonic rhetoric, was fed the idea that black men were innately inferior to white men. Although many knew better, “people find it very difficult to act on what they know.” (Baldwin 23) The civil rights activist presents whites as “innocents” having made an indolent and willful choice to remain unknowing by failing to exercise critical thinking. Similarly to the classical study of Orientalism, this has allowed them to avoid exploring the implications of their state-designed whiteness and how this construct has shaped race building in the west. The White Man’s worry of the status quo’s upheaval is nurtured by the belief that “your imprisonment made them safe [and they fear] losing their grasp of reality.” (Baldwin 23) Thus, James Sr. asserts that Black Americans “cannot be free until they are free” (Baldwin 24) and that we must “force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.” (Baldwin 24)
In his collection of essays titled Look, a White!, philosopher George Yancy suggests “flipping the script.” James Baldwin’s letter to his namesake describes that “it was intended that you [...] perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man’s definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name.” (Baldwin 23) According to Yancy, this is the doing of a culture of dominant white normativity where “black people are always already marked as different/deviant/ dangerous.” (Yancy 4) Indeed, being called or viewed as a “N***o” has violent ramifications, as exemplified by Fanon’s interaction with a young white boy on the train and by the story of James Craig Anderson from Jackson, Mississippi (Yancy 4). Historically, whiteness positioned itself as neutral and normative, thus allowing it to go unquestioned. Inspired by Sara Ahmed, bell hooks and W. E. B. Du Bois, Yancy suggests a black counter-gaze, one that “recognizes the ways of whiteness, sees beyond its “invisibility,” from the perspective of a form of raced positional knowledge.” (Yancy 8 ) Not only does this allow white people to confront complex manifestations of themselves, but flips the script by marking white bodies just as black bodies have historically endured. This process is both a threatening and frightening one to many whites as it “dares to mark whites as racists, as perpetuators and sustainers of racism.” (Yancy 9)
In a word, Baldwin identifies the ongoing hindering role of whiteness in our cultural context as a result of the hegemony’s ages-old rhetoric, while Yancy recognizes the intimidating but fruitful work that awaits white society in order to advance the liberation of those they have long subjugated.