James Baldwin: Deconstructing the Language of Racism
In his 1968 novel Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, Baldwin tells the story of Leo, a young, black, gay actor trying to make it big. Baldwin writes a scene in which the actor stops in at a diner in New Jersey while attending a summer acting workshop; he's there to pick up some hamburgers for the acting troupe. The mood is tense, and Leo can feel he's unwelcome. Baldwin's writing is economical and efficient: he doesn't need to reveal more than the few sentences exchanged between the racist men looking askance at Leo and angrily blurting out to his friend:
"I don't care," one of them said, "right is right."
"Don't get yourself upset, Bill," one of them said.
"It ain't worth it," one of them said. (140)
Restraining himself from any explicit commentary here, Baldwin just lets these men betray their ignorance. He exposes these men who try to cloak their racism in traditional ethics of what is "right." He shows how discrimination can "hide out" in the language of "what is right," and thus how language (here, a flimsy appeal to an unethical ethics) has continued to be used to prop up racism. As readers, we are made decidedly uncomfortable seeing this man justify discrimination by appealing to its long history as something that was "right" in America.
