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James A. Baldwin

James A. Baldwin Quotes

Novelist

James A. Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, and playwright. His works explored themes of race, gender, sexuality, and the class structure of American society. Baldwin is known for his profound social criticism and insight into the human condition.

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Famous James A. Baldwin Quotes

“Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.”

People Knows White

Author:James A. Baldwin

“When Americans look out on the world, they see nothing but dark and menacing strangers who appear to have no sense of rhythm at all, nor any respect or affection for white people; and white Americans really do not know what to make of all this, except to increase the defense budget.”

People Knows World Looks Dark White Increase Affection Stranger Defense Rhythm Budgets

Author:James A. Baldwin

“The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.”

Men World Literature Black White Accepting Definitions Refuse Threatened

Author:James A. Baldwin

“Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.”

Ifs School Black White Education Mathematics Indoctrination Subjugation

Author:James A. Baldwin

“The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.”

People Want Needs Should Black White Forever Black People Black And White

Author:James A. Baldwin

“People are continually pointing out to me the wretchedness of white people in order to console me for the wretchedness of blacks. But an itemized account of the American failure does not console me and it should not console anyone else. That hundreds of thousands of white people are living, in effect, no better than the "niggers" is not a fact to be regarded with complacency. The social and moral bankruptcy suggested by this fact is of the bitterest, most terrifying kind.”

People Should Kind Doe Facts Order Social White Moral Effects Accounts Pointing Complacency Console Bankruptcy Wretchedness

Author:James A. Baldwin

“White people will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this - which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never - the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.”

People Wells May Enough Problem White Accepting Needed Tomorrow And Love

Author:James A. Baldwin

“There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that *they* must accept *you*. The really 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.”

People Trying Mean Reason White Accepting Terrible Bases Assumption No Reason Terrible Things Buddy

Author:James A. Baldwin

“The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.”

Men Way Culture Black Justice White Diversity Crosses Social Justice White Man

Author:James A. Baldwin

“The real victim of bigotry is the white man who hides his weakness under his myth of superiority.”

Men Real Culture Justice White Diversity Weakness Victim Social Justice Myth Bigotry Superiority White Man

Author:James A. Baldwin

“The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and faggot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it is virtually forbidden - as an unpatriotic act - that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood”

“When the white man came to Africa, the white man had the Bible and the African had the land, but now it is the white man who is being, reluctantly and bloodily, separated from the land, and the African who is still attempting to digest or to vomit up the Bible.”

Men Stills White Land White Man Attempting

Author:James A. Baldwin

“I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, in a society in which they were supposed to be safe. The anomaly of their sexuality puts them in danger, unexpectedly.”

People Thinking Feels Born White Principles Danger Gay Safe Sexuality Supposed To Be Cheated Gay People Anomalies

Author:James A. Baldwin

“The American idea of racial progress is measured by how fast I become white.”

Ideas White Progress

Author:James A. Baldwin

“The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.”

People Thinking Important Reason Black White Racism

Author:James A. Baldwin

“Each of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other - male in female, female in male, white in black, and black in white. We are part of each other. Many of my countrymen appear to find this fact exceedingly inconvenient and even unfair, and so, very often, do I. But none of us can do anything about it.”

Facts Black Can Do White Forever Female Males Unfair Inconvenient Countrymen

Author:James A. Baldwin

“Negro servants have been smuggling odds and ends out of white homes for generations, and white people have been delighted to have them do it, because it has assuaged a dim guilt and testified to the intrinsic superiority of white people.”

People Has Beens Ends Home White Generations Racism Guilt Servant Odds Superiority Delighted Smuggling Odds And Ends

Author:James A. Baldwin

“This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.”

World White This World Ethics

Author:James A. Baldwin

About the Author

Born: August 2, 1924
Died: December 1, 1987
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 380

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