The Apocalyptic Baldwin

I wrote for the Summer 2017 issue of Dissent about James Baldwin's sense, later in his career, that this whole American project was a wreck. I talk about the documentary I Am Not Your Negro, and touch briefly on Jordan Peele's Get Out. The essay considers the failures of liberalism, and of white liberals, and the sense shared by Baldwin and others that we might just need to let the whole thing burn to the ground.

"Between 1963 (when The Fire Next Time was published) and 1972 (No Name in the Street), Baldwin developed an internationalist and anti-capitalist perspective. This led him to give up on American exceptionalism and, indeed, the American political project itself, convinced that whites would forever choose the psychological and material comforts of capitalism over the abolition of racism."

Find it here.