I think Naomi Klein is falling into the same trap as Israel: swinging so broadly against evil that the greatest damage lands on bystanders. Israel’s unbridled retaliation is not a sign of the “false idol” of Zionism, but of the false invoking of Zionism. The Zionists who have a heart and vision beyond shifting Knesset coalitions should not be rejected by a snarling aspersion; instead, they deserve a seat at the seder table to speak and be heard for the hope of repair and shared liberation .
I say this is as a great admirer of your work, Ren, but this Q&A was really disappointing to me. You and Blint present a Baldwin who is basically a perfect antecedent to the dead center of today's left wing orthodoxies on race. It's like the inverse of what Blint accused America of doing with Martin and Malcolm. Here stands James Baldwin, available to reaffirm what we already think about America and race and racism.
We're all entitled to have our takes on Baldwin, of course, and no guarantee that mine (which imagines him as a much less easily assimilable figure to today's discourse) is right, but this felt very flat to me. The cheap shots at the New Yorker for publishing him next to the luxury ads. The treatment of Fire Next Time as if it isn't also a substantive critique of the Nation of Islam and a certain strain of black nationalism. Is this really who you're reading when you read him, just someone who slots frictionlessly into our contemporary bien pensant left-wing take on things?
I think Naomi Klein is falling into the same trap as Israel: swinging so broadly against evil that the greatest damage lands on bystanders. Israel’s unbridled retaliation is not a sign of the “false idol” of Zionism, but of the false invoking of Zionism. The Zionists who have a heart and vision beyond shifting Knesset coalitions should not be rejected by a snarling aspersion; instead, they deserve a seat at the seder table to speak and be heard for the hope of repair and shared liberation .
I say this is as a great admirer of your work, Ren, but this Q&A was really disappointing to me. You and Blint present a Baldwin who is basically a perfect antecedent to the dead center of today's left wing orthodoxies on race. It's like the inverse of what Blint accused America of doing with Martin and Malcolm. Here stands James Baldwin, available to reaffirm what we already think about America and race and racism.
We're all entitled to have our takes on Baldwin, of course, and no guarantee that mine (which imagines him as a much less easily assimilable figure to today's discourse) is right, but this felt very flat to me. The cheap shots at the New Yorker for publishing him next to the luxury ads. The treatment of Fire Next Time as if it isn't also a substantive critique of the Nation of Islam and a certain strain of black nationalism. Is this really who you're reading when you read him, just someone who slots frictionlessly into our contemporary bien pensant left-wing take on things?
James Baldwin. My hero. The time is now.