The fire next time
From Amazon.com: A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle...all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.
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What Hacker News says
- The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson [1]
A Life's Work by Rachel Cusk [2]
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin [3]
We Real Cool by bell hooks [4]
[1] >The moment of queer pride is a refusal to be shamed by witnessing the other as being ashamed of you.
[2] >Birth is not merely that which divides women from men: it also divides women from themselves, so that a woman's understanding of what it is to exist is profoundly changed. Another person has existed in her, and after their birth the live within the jurisdiction of her consciousness. When she is with them she is not herself; when she is without them she is not herself; and so it is as difficult to leave your children as it is to stay with them. To discover this is to feel that your life has become irretrievably mired in conflict, or caught in some mythic snare in which you will perpetually, vainly struggle.
[3] >The terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know.
[4] >Showing aggression is the simplest way to assert patriarchal manhood. Men of all classes know this. As a consequence, all men living in a culture of violence must demonstrate at some point in their lives that they are capable of being violent.
- Ah, the evil white man patriarchy oppression rears its ugly head yet again. Kill the white male patriarchs.
The reality is that this line of attack has been going on for a long, long time in regards to the Great Books. I've been reading about people saying this same exact thing for decades.
Amna Khalid, who wrote this, her opinion is same as pretty much a lot of others that have gone before her.
As far as the "Great Books", AKA "The Western Canon", go, it part of Western culture. They are there because those books have withstood the test of time. Like today, there are always crappy authors that don't make it, from any age, in any culture. And unlike many (most), I have read most of the books from the Western Canon. As an aside, this really ruins me from reading any books on the New York Times list. The depth of those Great Books is truly remarkable. The Times list...not so much. Anyways, there is a literary tradition, from Homer, from about 750 BC, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two of the foundations of all Greek literature. Aeschylus - 525/524 BC, and so on. On and on. They represent the tradition and history of Western Civilization, which, of course, is evil, evil, evil. And, Amna Khalid - apparently she is supposedly a historian - an Associate Professor of history at Carleton College. Born in Pakistan, Amna earned an M.Phil. & D.Phil. from Oxford University. I don't know, I guess somehow she is unbiased. With Amna Khalid's M.Phil. & D.Phil., this supposedly qualifies her to "teach history" at Carleton College. Although to me, it seems like she is teaching philosophy of how bad Western Culture is, rather than history. It's the standard grievance studies line.
Any culture that has books from 2,500 years ago, and follows an unbroken literary tradition for 2,500 years, is worthy of note. I've read the Hindu Bhagavad Gita from India, written around 2,500 BC to 2,200 BC. The I Ching. I'm not all twisted up inside because I am white - I don't think that books from other cultures are oppression. And, white people and Chinese people didn't hardly know each other, what's there to "oppress"?
The thing is - there are other literary canons. There ARE lists of Great Books from Asian, Black, Central and South America.
While a black canon is being developed, there certainly are great books by black men and women. James Baldwin’s, The Fire Next Time, E. Franklin Frazier’s, Black Bourgeoisie, Cater G. Woodson’s, The Mis-Education of the Negro. Frederick Douglass is a particular hero of mine.
Asian Literary canon may include:
、Pre-Imperial and Early Imperial (Before 220AD):
The Book of Songs, edited by Confucius
The Spring and Autumn Annals, edited by Confucius
The Analects, by Confucius
Mencius, by Mencius
The Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu
Chuang Tzu, by Chuang Tzu
The Songs of the South, by Qu Yuan
Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian
二、Mid Imperial and High Imperial (220AD-1279AD):
The Poetry of Tao Yuanming (also known as Tao Qian or T’ao Ch’ien)
The Poetry of Wang Wei
The Poetry of Li Bai (a.k.a. Li Po)
The Poetry of Du Fu (a.k.a. Tu Fu)
The Poetry of Han Yu
The Poetry of Bai Juyi (a.k.a. Po Chu-i)
The Poetry of Su Shi (a.k.a. Su Tung-po)
The Poetry of Li Qingzhao (a.k.a. Li Ch’ing-chao)
三、Late Imperial and Early Modern (1279AD-1912AD):
Romance of the Western Chamber, by Wang Shifu
The Peony Pavilion, by Tang Xianzu
The Palace of Eternal Life, by Hong Sheng
The Peach Blossom Fan, by Kong Shangren
The Plum in the Golden Vase, by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng
Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, by Pu Songling
Unofficial History of the Scholars, by Wu Jingzi
The Story of the Stone, by Cao Xueqin
.
However, all these other cultures have their own literary canon, ie great books. Should we also say that those books are no good?
I suppose that Amna Khalid knows full well of the Great Books from other literary traditions, and that those can be taught, or like me, read on one's own (universities are supposed to teach people to think and become autodidacts. So since she knows that there are other lists for other cultures, freely available, I suspect her agenda is to continue the overall attack on the white male patriarchy, just use a different avenue for the continuous attack on Western civilization that is all the rage of all the universities.
I mean, even mathematics is now an evil white male patriarchical oppression. google it if you don't believe me.
- These threads often cause comments that have no clue about the reality of black people. For those who are ok with videos, here are some good but enjoyable ones. You may use 'NewPipe' from fdroid or the youtube-dl command line utility to download them:
[1] How to pretend systemic racism does not exist? (with eng subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ciwjHVHYg
[2] Let's talk about what it's like to be a black person in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD8mWq0Hdcw
[3] Let's talk about being armed and black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_IX8yX_JU
[4] How cops are trained to shoot you in your home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzQrbio2Qw
Other resources include James Baldwin's books and documentaries. His 'The Fire Next Time' is just 120 pages [5].
'The Price of the Ticket' and 'I Am Not Your Negro' are good documentaries [6][7].
[5] https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/06797...
[6] https://www.amazon.com/James-Baldwin-Price-Ticket/dp/B01M25W...
[7] https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T
[8] Also the 1965 Baldwin and Buckley debate on the theme "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the American negro?" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLUbKebYvc
- News related to this is getting buried and flagged on HN yesterday and today.
Flagged thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26383977
Another: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26383160
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26374822
So many insensitive comments.
Google already had sexual harassment issues stemming from some top leaders in the past. They didn't get punished.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-...
https://qz.com/work/1326942/sergey-brin-started-google-with-...
Also, these threads often cause comments that have no clue about the reality of black people. For those who are ok with videos, here are some good but enjoyable ones. You may use 'NewPipe' from fdroid or the youtube-dl command line utility to download them:
[1] How to pretend systemic racism does not exist? (with eng subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ciwjHVHYg
[2] Let's talk about what it's like to be a black person in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD8mWq0Hdcw
[3] Let's talk about being armed and black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_IX8yX_JU
[4] How cops are trained to shoot you in your home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzQrbio2Qw
Other resources include James Baldwin's books and documentaries. His 'The Fire Next Time' is just 120 pages [5].
'The Price of the Ticket' and 'I Am Not Your Negro' are good documentaries [6][7].
[5] https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/06797...
[6] https://www.amazon.com/James-Baldwin-Price-Ticket/dp/B01M25W...
[7] https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T
[8] Also the 1965 Baldwin and Buckley debate on the theme "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the American negro?" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLUbKebYvc
English subtitle download: https://amara.org/en/videos/dGI1henIPVYS/en/1338731/
- A quick search of 'Marion Gerald Hood Emory University rejection letter' will show how even in 1959, blacks were treated like scum.
There are ways to get an idea of the reality of black people. For those who are ok with videos, here are some good but enjoyable ones. You may use 'NewPipe' from fdroid or the youtube-dl command line utility to download them:
[1] How to pretend systemic racism does not exist? (with eng subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ciwjHVHYg
[2] Let's talk about what it's like to be a black person in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD8mWq0Hdcw
[3] Let's talk about being armed and black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_IX8yX_JU
[4] How cops are trained to shoot you in your home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzQrbio2Qw
Other resources include James Baldwin's books and documentaries. His 'The Fire Next Time' is just 120 pages [5].
'The Price of the Ticket' and 'I Am Not Your Negro' are good documentaries [6][7].
[5] https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/06797...
[6] https://www.amazon.com/James-Baldwin-Price-Ticket/dp/B01M25W...
[7] https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T
[8] Also the 1965 Baldwin and Buckley debate on the theme "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the American negro?" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLUbKebYvc
English subtitle download: https://amara.org/en/videos/dGI1henIPVYS/en/1338731/
- In addittion to The Fire Next Time, my personal favorites are a series of essays he wrote from the South during desegregation:
A Fly in the Buttermilk
Nobody Knows My Name
Faulkner and Desegregation
