It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one's own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength. This fight begins however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair. This intimation made my heart heavy and, now that my father was irrecoverable, I wished that he had been beside me so that I could have searched his face for the answers which only the future would give me now.More and more this idea is becoming a huge part of my overall philosophy. The world is imperfect and we cannot make it perfect. But we must fight, slowly but doggedly, for incremental changes. And we cannot ever give in to despair. Baldwin puts this thought to writing so well and it comes at the end of a really powerful essay about race and his father.
On another note, discovering Baldwin reminds me how little I know about African-American thought and history. Unfortunately, the common portrayal of African-American thought divides everything into two camps: non-violent strategies lead by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the violent strategies of Malcom X and the Black Panthers. It takes reading books by Ralph Ellison or James Baldwin (or better yet Malcolm X himself) to start to appreciate what should be obvious - that African-American thought is far more varied and complex.
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