What James Baldwin can teach us about Israel, and ourselves

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

It's been more than ten months since devastating violence began unfolding in Israel and Gaza. And in the midst of all the death, so many people are trying to better understand what's going on in that region, and how the United States is implicated in it. So on this episode, we're looking back to the writing of James Baldwin, whose views on the country transformed significantly over the course of his life. His thoughts offer some ideas about how to grapple with trauma, and how to bridge the gap between places and ideas that, on their surface, might seem oceans apart.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Christian nationalists want to turn America into a theocracy, a government under biblical rule.
0:07.0	If they gain more power, it could mean fewer rights for you.
0:12.0	I'm Heath Drusen and on the new season of Extremely American
0:16.0	I'll take you inside the movement. Listen to Extremely American from Boise State Public
0:21.2	Radio, part of the NPR Network.
0:26.0	What's good? You're listening to Code Switch. I'm Gene Dembe, and I want to take you back in
0:31.0	Tom for a moment. The year was 1979. James Baldwin, the
0:36.7	activist and author, was being profiled on ABC News.
0:40.2	James Baldwin is one of those lucky people who's never been unsure of his family's love.
0:44.7	The crew visited him at his home in Harlem and sat down for dinner with James Baldwin and his family.
0:49.7	And at one point, Baldwin makes this observation.
0:55.0	The American sense of reality is dictated about what Americans are trying to avoid.
1:00.0	What Americans are trying to avoid.
1:04.3	In that moment, Baldwin was talking about the American legacy of slavery.
1:08.6	But over the course of his life, he spent a lot of time thinking and speaking and writing about all kinds of issues that Americans
1:15.9	were trying to avoid. One of those issues is real. Jews and Palestinians know of broken promises.
1:25.0	That line is from one of Baldwin's essays in the Nation magazine, way back in 1979.
1:30.0	You're hearing an actor reading's words.
1:32.0	But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews.
1:35.2	It was created for the salvation of the Western interests.
1:38.1	You might be surprised to learn that James Bowen thought a lot about what was happening in that region.
1:45.2	And I want to be clear here, Israel was never a major theme in his work, but he still wrote
	...

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