James Baldwin on Faulkner // Fleishman


James Baldwin on Faulkner


     "Things have been getting better," Faulkner tells us, "for a long time. Only six Negroes were killed by whites in Mississippi last year, according to police figures." Faulkner surely knows how little consolation this offers a Negro and he also knows something about "police figures" in the Deep South. And he knows, too, that murder is not the worst thing that can happen to a man, black or white. But murder may be the worst thing a man can do. Faulkner is not trying to save Negroes, who are ,in his view, already saved; who, having refused to be destroyed by terror, are far stronger than the terrified white populace; and who have, moreover, fatally, from his point of view ,the weight of the Federal government behind them. He is trying to save "whatver good remains in those white people." The time he pleads for is the time in which the Southerner will come to terms with himself, will cease fleeing from his conscience, and achieve, in the words of Robert Penn Warren, "moral identity." And he surely believes, with Warren, that "Then in a country where moral identity is hard to come by, the South, because it had to deal concretely with a moral problem, may offer some leadership. And we need any we can get. If we are to break out of the national rhythm, the rhythm between complacency and panic."

    But the time Faulkner asks for does not exist—and he is not the only Southerner who knows it. There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now.


"Faulkner and Desegregation," By James Baldwin



Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshMay 5, 2021 at 9:30 AM

    Faulkner's interviews were generally horrible. It's worth noting, though, that Baldwin isn't talking about his novels, which he praises elsewhere. Faulkner the writer seems possessed by a Muse that sees into hearts from all sides. He has been described as more deeply exposing the south and racism than anyone else, but in doing so made it face itself and gave it an opening to a better future. He flays racism from the inside. I think what we saw in class was a very complex mind, full of struggles but with a genuine moral core and care for people on all sides; in public pronouncements, such a mind will always come across badly.

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