Baldwin, Individualism, and the Means of White Self-Empowerment

Abstract

Baldwin, Individualism, and the Means of White Self-Empowerment Amy A. Foley (bio) In his essay "Faulkner and Desegregation," published in Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin clarifies William Faulkner's two vocal perspectives written in separate essays, one against segregation and the other "just as strongly against compulsory integration" (86). There can be no doubt as to the impact of Baldwin's contribution in his brief critique of Faulkner's apparent double mindedness, that Faulkner "means everything he says, means them all at once, and with very nearly the same intensity" (Nobody 121). Faulkner's now-famous utterance during an interview that he would "fight for Mississippi against the United States even if it meant going out into the street and shooting Negroes" (Lion in the Garden 261) still rests uneasily alongside his previous vocal support of the NAACP. It is clear from Baldwin's essay that he takes no issue with Faulkner's seemingly contradicting viewpoints; rather, Faulkner's "in the middle" pathology and his daring suggestion to "Go slow now" are the provocation for Baldwin's formulation of a moderate white positioning toward race politics. The publication dates between Faulkner's gradualism presented in his September 1956 Ebony publication "A Letter to the Leaders in the Negro Race" and Baldwin's Partisan Review essay published in winter of the same year further suggest the place of Baldwin's essay as a response to Faulkner's own manifestations of white self-empowerment, individualism, and double mindedness. Scholars have drawn attention to the importance of Baldwin's claim that Faulkner is not exceptional but rather archetypal of white Southern race ideology in his defense of the South against the United States. Baldwin's critique of Faulkner is an essential intertextual complement and case study in relation to Baldwin's other writings which disassemble white identity in America. Our reading of Baldwin's essay is also greatly enriched by an understanding of his overall approach to literary critique, which is to illuminate the oversimplification of racism within the protest novel (Williams 56). In the example of Faulkner, Baldwin points [End Page 169] out that it is ultimately useless and erroneous to see the American population as racist or non-racist. These categories are as useless to Baldwin as it would be to place Faulkner as integrationist or segregationist.1 Baldwin makes clear enough the numerous dimensions of Faulkner's defensiveness and double mindedness, his particular brand of white liberalism and supremacy informed by Southern separatism and an espousal of American democratic values. He introduces in Faulkner a concept foundational to American political and racialized thought, but he does not set out to examine Faulkner's particular brand of supremacy beyond his demonstration of Faulkner as both a Southern and American type. As a master of the personal-political essay, Baldwin is not concerned with an academic analysis further than the impact made by his own critical rhetoric. The two authors never met one another, nor does Baldwin concern himself with Faulkner beyond this essay much with the exception of an occasional instrumental reference in his fiction.2 For the critical reader of Faulkner, Baldwin's critique evokes only more questions as to the particulars of Faulkner's thought which substantiate the multiplicity and confusion of his own "personal incoherence," in the words of Baldwin. Faulkner's oeuvre openly embodies the contradictions of American life, a subject which Baldwin develops thoroughly in his fiction and nonfiction. In many ways, Baldwin's assimilation of seemingly contradictory statements made by Faulkner challenge the reader to consider the makings of the "rich confusion" of American identity (Nobody 11). Despite the relatively minimal engagement between these writers, a vast web of knowledge and experience informs this single point of contact. Baldwin's critique retroactively alters how we read all of Faulkner's work, beyond the supposed double politics of American ideals for equality and Southern independence. Instead of leading us to Faulkner's contradictory race politics, Baldwin's writing lends itself to the coextensivity between American nationalism and Southern regionalism, centered on shared expressions of individualism, freedom, and privacy. Commentary on identity and relationality is best articulated in both authors' distinct bodies of nonfiction essays...