ju s t out ▼ January 2 1 , 1994 ▼ 17
price of being alive. James Baldwin, a man of great
perception, passion and humor, a man who sought
connection, all too often found himself looking
across the drawn battle lines of borders. He didn’t
shun them; the battle lines were, as he might put it,
the price of the ticket.
James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket plays
Thursday through Sunday, Feb. 3-6, at 7 pm; with
additional shows on Friday, Feb. 4, at 9pm and
on Sunday, Feb. 6, at 5 pm. Prices vary. Clinton
Street Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899.
B
a l d w in in
P
ii i n t
n his introduction to Nobody Knows My
Name, James Baldwin writes:
“In America, the color of my skin had
stood between myself and me; in Europe,
that barrier was down. Nothing is more
desirable than to be released from an affliction, but
nothing is more frightening than to be divested of
a crutch. It turned out that the question of who I was
was not solved because I had removed myself from
the social forces which menaced me—anyway,
these forces had become interior, and I had dragged
them across the ocean with me. The question of
who I was had at last become a personal question,
and the answer was to be found in me.”
an instant without you, with a skull more fragile
than an egg, a miracle of eyes, legs, toenails, and
(especially) lungs. It gropes in the light like a blind
thing—it is, for the moment, blind—what can it
make of what it secs? It’s got a little hair, which it’s
going to lose, it’s got no teeth, it pees all over you,
it belches, and when it’s frightened or hungry,
quite without knowing what a miracle it’s accom
plishing, it exercises its lungs. You watch it
discover it has a hand; then it discovers it has toes.
Presently, it discovers it has you, and since it has
already decided it wants to live, it gives you a
toothless smile when you come near it, gurgles or
giggles when you pick it up, holds you tight by the
thumb or the eyeball or the hair, and, having
already opted against solitude, howls when you put
it down. You begin the extraordinary journey of
beginning to know and to control this creature. You
know the sound—the meaning—of one cry from
another; without knowing that you know it. You
know when it’s hungry—that’s one sound. You
know when it’s wet—that’s another sound. You
know when it’s angry. You know when it’s bored.
You know when it’s frightened. You know when
it’s suffering. You come or you go or you sit still
according to the sound the baby makes. And you
watch over it where I was born, even in your sleep,
because rats love the odor of newborn babies and
arc much, much bigger.”
Baldwin didn’t jump onto the easy name-call
ing bandwagons of some of his contemporaries,
Baldwin never stopped with simple answers. causing many to call him weak. The issue of race
His writing and speeches reflected the complexity revealed a wealth of information, and towards the
of his life, as he sought
end, a glimmer of
to make sense of the
joy, as he writes in
GO ^
' The Price of the
black/white polarity in
the United States. In The
Ticket, Collected
Price of the Ticket: Col
Nonfiction 1948-
lected Nonfiction 1948- T E L L IT O N T H E 1985:
1985, Baldwin wrote:
‘The will of the
people,
or the State,
“It is exceedingly dif
M
O
U
N
T
A
IN
is revealed by the
ficult for most of us to
State’s institutions.
discard the assumptions
of the society in which
There was not,
we were bom, in which
then, nor is there,
now, a single
we live, to which we owe
American institu
our identities; very diffi
tion which is not a
cult to defeat the trap of
racist
institution.
circumstance, which is,
And racist institu
also, the web of safety;
virtually impossible, if
fell
pl tions—the unions,
HI J 9 H | ,, ; ' ■> i tem
or t he for one example,
not completely impos
the Church, for an
sible, to envision the fu p ,
j W M a É K BAPT ® IS other,
and the
ture, except in those
Army—or the mili
terms which we think we
tary—for yet an
already know. Most of
.
/
»
»
i
i
y
f
B
other, are meant to
us are about as eager to
keep the nigger in
be changed as we were
his place. Yes: we
to be born, and go
I
have
lived through
through our changes in a
avalanches of to
similar state of shock.
kens and conces
“Including this
sions but white
writer, of course, who
power
remains
white.
And
what
it appears to
was far, however, years ago, from being able to
forgive himself for being so irretrievably human. surrender with one hand it obsessively clutches in
The power of the social definition is that it be the other.
“I know that this is considered to be heresy.
comes, fatally, one’s own—but it took time, and
much deep water, to make me sec this. Rage and Sparc me, for Christ's and His Father’s sake, any
misery can be a source of comfort, simply because furthcr examples of American white progress. When
one has lived with rage and misery for so long.’’ one examines the use of this word in this most
particular context, it translates as meaning that
Although his childhood was distorted by terror those people who have opted for being white
of his father and a perennially pregnant mother, congratulate themselves on their generous ability
whom the children conspired to protect from the to return to the slave that freedom which they never
father, Baldwin delighted in each new baby that had any right to endanger, much less take away.
came along. In The Price of the Ticket, Collected For this dubious effort, and still more dubious
achievement, they congratulate themselves and
Nonfiction 1948-1985, Baldwin wrote:
“I want to avoid generalities as far as possible; expect to be congratulated: in the coin, further
it will, I hope, become clear presently that what I more, of black gratitude, gratitude not only that my
am now attempting dictates this avoidance; and so burden is(slowly, but it takes time) being made
but my joy that white people arc improv-
I will not say that children love miracles, but I will lighter
•
«•
say that I think we did. A newborn baby is an ing.
extraordinary event; and I have never seen two , . , The collected .fiction and nonfiction .of Jumcs
babies who looked or even sounded remotely alike. ' Baldwin is.well, worth revisiting for the strength,
Here it is, this breathing miracle who could not live clarity and hope that he offers.
I Jl
.
1 &
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