@Amanda Saint - Thank you for writing this piece. I bow in deep appreciation. Baldwin always stops me in my tracks and makes me reread what has said a second time. He demands that kind of attention out of me. To write the truth as he did, and to live it so fully on the page, is extraordinary. The self-knowledge he embodied through narrative is both humbling and breathtaking. As he recounted experience, he seemed to be able to metabolize it in real time. His words came from a place of profound emotional reckoning where the personal and political, past and present, were inseparable. It's quite amazing.
What moves me most is his ability to hold contradiction, grief and grace, rage and love without needing to resolve it. To me, this reveals a rare gift for truth telling, forged through deep inner work.
Reading Baldwin, in my view, invites us to ask whether we’re truly willing to know ourselves. And when we write from that place within ourselves, our stories can become vehicles for something larger, something tied to the possibility of change through reckoning. Again and again, Baldwin shows that honest writing doesn’t have to alienate; under certain conditions, it can connect us to our truth. It can heal us and it can be freeing.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response to this, Bronce. I’m so glad that it, and James Baldwin’s work, resonate with you. His writing and deep understanding of our fallibilities is something special that can help us all be better humans.
Amanda, what a powerful piece thank you for bringing all those wonderful quotes from James Baldwin to my attention this morning. This piece is what I read after 20 minutes of following the latest coverage from Los Angeles and the police state that is being established there. I love the idea of this seriesand I’m so glad I clicked on your email this morning. This is wonderful.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Laura. We are living in challenging times indeed and I truly believe that we can make a difference with our words. Like James Baldwin said, "The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” This is my mission! To get everyone writing from a place of love even when writing about injustice and cruelty so that everyone who reads it has their mind changed millimetre by millimetre. And I stopped watching, reading or listening to any mainstream news several years ago when the UK had its own dystopian nightmare (which is ongoing) during Brexit, as I saw the hate and division that was guiding it and knew I there was no place for that in my heart and mind. And my mission to change the stories we tell was planted as a seed in my mind in that moment and I’ve been tending it ever since. It’s going to grow into a mighty tree with far reaching roots of love and compassion. 🌳 💙
Amanda--I was working on the end of a short story about antisemitism and you made me stop dead in my tracks. You made me "re-feel" and raised my sights. You opened my eyes--striking back to injustice isn't the way to go. You need to love that injustice back. Thank you.
@Amanda Saint - Thank you for writing this piece. I bow in deep appreciation. Baldwin always stops me in my tracks and makes me reread what has said a second time. He demands that kind of attention out of me. To write the truth as he did, and to live it so fully on the page, is extraordinary. The self-knowledge he embodied through narrative is both humbling and breathtaking. As he recounted experience, he seemed to be able to metabolize it in real time. His words came from a place of profound emotional reckoning where the personal and political, past and present, were inseparable. It's quite amazing.
What moves me most is his ability to hold contradiction, grief and grace, rage and love without needing to resolve it. To me, this reveals a rare gift for truth telling, forged through deep inner work.
Reading Baldwin, in my view, invites us to ask whether we’re truly willing to know ourselves. And when we write from that place within ourselves, our stories can become vehicles for something larger, something tied to the possibility of change through reckoning. Again and again, Baldwin shows that honest writing doesn’t have to alienate; under certain conditions, it can connect us to our truth. It can heal us and it can be freeing.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response to this, Bronce. I’m so glad that it, and James Baldwin’s work, resonate with you. His writing and deep understanding of our fallibilities is something special that can help us all be better humans.
Amanda, what a powerful piece thank you for bringing all those wonderful quotes from James Baldwin to my attention this morning. This piece is what I read after 20 minutes of following the latest coverage from Los Angeles and the police state that is being established there. I love the idea of this seriesand I’m so glad I clicked on your email this morning. This is wonderful.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Laura. We are living in challenging times indeed and I truly believe that we can make a difference with our words. Like James Baldwin said, "The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” This is my mission! To get everyone writing from a place of love even when writing about injustice and cruelty so that everyone who reads it has their mind changed millimetre by millimetre. And I stopped watching, reading or listening to any mainstream news several years ago when the UK had its own dystopian nightmare (which is ongoing) during Brexit, as I saw the hate and division that was guiding it and knew I there was no place for that in my heart and mind. And my mission to change the stories we tell was planted as a seed in my mind in that moment and I’ve been tending it ever since. It’s going to grow into a mighty tree with far reaching roots of love and compassion. 🌳 💙
Amanda--I was working on the end of a short story about antisemitism and you made me stop dead in my tracks. You made me "re-feel" and raised my sights. You opened my eyes--striking back to injustice isn't the way to go. You need to love that injustice back. Thank you.
I’m really glad to hear this, Richard! Love is always the answer! 💙