GREAT BOOKS 5: James Baldwin's Another Country with Rich Blint
"If we - and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks [...] do not falter in our duty now, we may be able [...] to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.” James Baldwin's appeal and admonition ring as true as they did in the 1960s, when the novelist became the nation's conscience - and also started to feel "like a broken record," repeating a message that white America refused to accept. The current revival of Baldwin in films, books, and documentaries such as Ta-Nehisi Coates's "Between the World and Me" (2015), Raoul Peck's "I Am Not Your Negro" (2017), Jesmyn Ward's edited collection, "The Fire This Time" (2017), and Barry Jenkins's adaption of Baldwin's 1974 novel, "If Beale Street Could Talk" (2018), and references by liberals and conservatives alike, signals that something is yet to be grasped in Baldwin's powerful words. Rich Blint is a scholar, writer and curator who teaches at the New School in New York City. He is the author of a forthcoming book on Baldwin, and has published, curated, and participated in key academic events on Baldwin's unceasing relevance over the past several years. He talks with me about Baldwin's powerful and complicated 1961 novel, Another Country, to show how Baldwin's vision can guide our actions today. Rich explains what it would mean to heed Baldwin's advice for the nation to finally leave its romantic adolescent delusions behind (including, I've learned in this conversation, its attachment to interracial buddy movies), and truly grow up.