LOVE, LABOR, AND LOSS. The Trans-Atlantic Homelessness of James Baldwin
LOVE, LABOR, AND LOSS. The Trans-Atlantic Homelessness of James Baldwin

Summary/Abstract: How does an African-American writer experience Americanness?What does one do when one feels himself born an outcast in one’sown country and then discovers that that country is the only one hecan regard as home? Despite—or perhaps because of—his extraordinarygifts, James Baldwin viewed himself as a stranger in America, and hissense of exclusion was threefold, arising not only from his blacknessbut also from his homosexuality and his identity as an intellectual.At the age of 24, fearing that his life in the United States might soontopple either into violence or a fatal self-contempt, Baldwin traveledto Paris, where he remained for many years. In a superficial sense,Baldwin’s transatlantic life afforded him two homes instead of one.Yet, as his writings confirm, Baldwin’s experiences outside the UnitedStates convinced him that he had no true spiritual home anywhere.He could not be truly, comfortably himself in either location. This essaydiscusses how Baldwin’s European sojourns served to confirm his Americanness—a confirmation he could regard only as bittersweet and tragic.Having observed White Americans both at home and abroad, Baldwinwas able to reflect eloquently on the American need to regard itselfas somehow exempt from the judgments that hang heavily over the restof the world. He saw America’s desperate insistence on its own innocenceas pervading the nation’s character, whether it was expressedin racial attitudes, foreign policy, or the complex repressions of sexuallonging. And that need for exemption circled back to America’s distrustof serious thought and the fear that earnest intellectual labor would tearaside once and for all the mask and myth of American purity. The failureof America, he believed, was a failure of honesty compounded by an incapacityto love. Finding nothing outside of America in which to place hisfaith, Baldwin placed his profoundly reluctant confidence in the UnitedStates. Like Baldwin, we must place our reliance in sympathy, forgiveness,and a rediscovery of common ground. We must, in short, rediscoverlove, for we, too, have no other place to go.

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