California Newsreel: James Baldwin: The Price of The Ticket

Source:The Daily Post.  

I think James Baldwin’s best statement in this video is that he wasn’t a member of a race or a religion or any group. That he was a human being and I imagine as such that is all he wanted to be seen as and judged as. James Baldwin the person and perhaps who just happens to also be part of this group or these groups. And isn’t that Martin King’s’ dream that he dreamed of a world where his children wouldn’t be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Or how I would put it and how I look at people as both a person and a Liberal, that I look at people as individuals first. And perhaps as members of groups second or even further down the line. But not as part of this race, ethnicity, religion or any other class that has nothing to do with how good of a person they are. And how they should be judged and treated in life.

Revolutionary Workers Party: Malcolm X vs. James Baldwin

Source:The New Democrat

I have a problem with Malcolm X having a problem with the civil rights sit-ins of, I believe, from 1963, and perhaps earlier than that. Because what these young Americans were doing was saying that they were people too and that they could not be denied service simply because of their race or color. And all they were doing by going to these restaurants and diners and what Rosa Parks did on the bus by refusing to give up her seat to a Caucasian man was saying “we are here too and you can’t force us to leave.” Perhaps what Malcolm X would’ve preferred was that the demonstrators had bats or guns or something. And when a racist would tell them to move or try to physically move then that they would get hit the demonstrator.

Reason Party: James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley (1965)

Source:Reason Party- Conservative columnist William F. Buckley, debating author James Buckley, at Oxford, in 1965.

Source:The Daily Post

“James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley (Part 6)”

From the Reason Party

Bill Buckley seems to be trying to making the case that racial-discrimination isn’t the only problem in the African-American community. That they also face issues of personal responsibility like having kids out-of-wedlock, fathers leaving their kids and ending up in prison, not finishing school and so-forth. Which I actually agree with Buckley on, just as long as he’s saying that racial discrimination like being forced to go to inadequate schools, being denied loans, housing, employment, etc, simply because of your race, are also contributing factors the plight (lets say) of the African-American community. A community that was kidnapped, that was kidnapped from the very beginning and forced to live in America.

You could have a community of Americans by race, or ethnicity, or whatever, that plays by all the rules, lives up to all of their responsibilities, that could still fail, if they’re not allowed to attend quality schools, have access to banking, loans, quality housing, employment, not because of their personal and professional qualifications, but because of their race and ethnicity. Things that have nothing to do with what kind of businessperson they would be, what kind of student they would be, what kind of employee they would be, what kind of resident they would be, etc. And that is the real crime of legal racial discrimination in America and Jim Crow. Whether it comes from the private, or public sectors.

Reason Party: Oxford Union: William F. Buckley vs James Baldwin (1965)

Source:Reason Party- William F. Buckley debating James Baldwin in 1965, at Oxford Union.

Source:The Daily Post 

"James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley (Part 5)" 

From the Reason Party  

I don't think that William F. Buckley is denying that racism existed against Africans in America at that point in 1965 or that it existed before. I think what he's doing here, is asking his opponents in this debate, what are their solutions to the race problem in America, as it relates to both European and African-Americans. I think he wanted to know what the proponents of the civil rights movement, believed should be done to benefit African-Americans. 

I think the answers to this question is obvious. The proponents of the civil rights movement that was led by Dr. Martin Luther King, at least in the early and mid 1960s, wanted equality under the law, not just the Constitution, but the law as well. They wanted and got laws passed that were supported by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, laws that wouldn't have passed in the Congress (House and Senate) without a lot of Republican votes, that would make it illegal to discriminate against anyone in America, not just based on race, but ethnicity, gender, and religion. 

When I'm talking about discrimination, I mean denying access to people simply based on what their race, ethnicity, gender or religion. Not just by government, but but by private individuals and organizations, including privately owned businesses that are opened to the public.  

I'm thinking that Bill Buckley being the brilliant debater and man that he was, already knew this. But perhaps what he wanted to know was where does the American civil rights movement believe America should go from there in 1965 and post-1965. 

Reason Party: James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley: Oxford (1965)

Source:Reason Party- Author James Baldwin, at Oxford Union in 1965.

Source:The Daily Post

"James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley (Part 4" 

From the Reason Party

James Baldwin, talking about the fact that he and other African-Americans were robbed of their history. And even denied of where they had originally come from, where their ancestors came from. And being forced to live in someone else’s world that was not created by Africans. 

What is the biggest evil of African slavery, is that Africans being kidnapped and taken to America and not just forced to live in another country, another continent and another culture, with another people who they perhaps have never seen before, let alone heard of and forced to live essentially as prisoners. And forced to serve these people that had kidnapped them.

The Europeans kidnapping Africans from Africa and taking them to North America and force them to work as slaves for the new European-Americans, is the worst kidnapping in American history, if not world history. And that is right on top of what the Europeans, mostly Anglo-Saxon Brits and people of British descent, did to the American Indians. And forced them off of their homeland so as the Europeans would put it, a more peaceful and civilized people could live peacefully and civilly and not be bothered. Which of course is nonsense, but that had to be the thinking of what they did to first the Indians and kicking them off of their land. And then the Africans and kidnapping them and forcing them to live and serve as slaves on someone else’s land.

Reason Party: James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley: Oxford Union Debate (1965)

Source:Reason Party- one of the debate participants. A British man whose name I don't know.

Source:The Daily Post

"James Baldwin vs. William F. Buckley (Part 2)" 

From Reason Party

African-Americans being forced to live under a system that was created by Europeans, having no choice in whether to come over there and live in the new world or not. And living under European-Americans and under their discrimination in many cases. 

I'm not saying that Africans would be better off back in Africa had they not have been forced to leave there for America. As some right-wingers have implied that Africans have it better in America than anywhere else in the world. (So why are they complaining?) Which is debatable anyway, but the point here is that they never had a choice. They were forced to leave Africa for a strange world to them that they knew nothing about before they cam here and were forced to live in slavery.

And what I believe the Right was arguing here was that Africans (or has they called them Negros back then) had it better in America than anyone else. Despite Jim Crow, forced desegregation, being turned down for jobs and service simply, because of their race and complexion. Being forced to go to rotten schools and live in rotten housing, because again they were being denied access to a good education and good jobs. And yet the Right is arguing here that African-Americans had it better in America than Africans anywhere else in the world, especially in third-world Africa. But again that is off point even if its correct. Because why should be people be forced to live in poverty simply because of the race and complexion.

The Riverbends Channel: 'James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)'

Source:The Riverbends Channel- author James Baldwin debating William F. Buckley in 1965.

Source:The Daily Post 

"Historic debate between James Baldwin v. William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University on the question: "Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?" 

From The Riverbends Channel 

You won’t find better debates than this one, with so many intelligent, thoughtful, respectful people, a debate with both James Baldwin and William Buckley. In this debate, they are addressing the biggest issue of the 1960s, perhaps the biggest issue in the history of the United States, civil rights: Should we treat all Americans regardless of race equally under the law?

As far as the debate goes, I believe the answer is obvious, that of course the American dream for Caucasian-Americans has been achieved at the expense of Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America and the Caribbean to serve Caucasians. Once the Africans were legally free from slavery and became Americans, Caucasians continued to live the American dream at the expense of African-Americans.

The examples are obvious starting with slavery and then moving to segregation during which African-Americans were forced to live in inadequate ghetto housing and attend substandard schools. They had to settle for the only jobs they could get, such as house servants for upper and middle class Caucasian-American families, because they were denied the educational opportunities that would lead to well-paying jobs with good benefits.

KQED: James Baldwin: 'Who is The Nigger?'

Source:KQED- author James Baldwin talking about the word nigger in 1963.

Source:The Daily Post 

“A clip from, “Take this Hammer”… KQED’s mobile film unit follows author and activist James Baldwin in the spring of 1963, as he’s driven around San Francisco to meet with members of the local African-American community. Baldwin reflects on the racial inequality that African-Americans are forced to confront and at one point tries to lift the morale of a young man by expressing his conviction that: “There will be a Negro president of this country but it will not be the country that we are sitting in now.”

From KQED 

James Baldwin was certainly not a nigger. Only ignorant people who do not know enough about the people they are afraid of regardless of race are niggers.

What I believe Baldwin’s point about nigger, a word I hate and not even comfortable writing, let alone saying, but what I think he was saying is that nigger was something that people who hate Africans and people of African descent call African people especially African-Americans.

Caucasian racists of European descent who are both ignorant and hateful of people with dark brown and black complexions, that African people, especially African-Americans tend to have.

Native-Africans just tend to have black skin unless they come from the Arab states in the North and people up there tend to look more of Mediterranean decent. People with olive and brown complexions. Italians, Greeks, Southern Slavs, French, Spanish, Portuguese and so-forth.