Humanism Within A White Social Construct
The price one pays for pursuing any profession,
or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
Not everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
In The Price of the Ticket, with a mature perspective, we enjoy the collected nonfiction works of author James Baldwin between the period covering 1945-1985. Seldom can a work that seeks to explore an individual have as its foundation to reveal itself wholly quotes by that same individual, but such a study we have within the focus of this analysis. In the spotlight of such company we might propose a Gandhi or King, Jr.,; however, in the shadows, as consistent, as worthy, as humanistic, but, perhaps, less political or with a less full-blown but equally valid agenda, we find the distinguished Mr. Baldwin. Not a black writer, not a gay writer, not even a militant self-serving pamphleteer, just a passionate human being, who, refusing to accept the baggage of the former preconditioned occupations, only fought at a certain level of awareness engendered by the journey up till then, predicated and catalyzed by the latter concern. Sit back and learn the tale of humanism, it’s going to be a bumpy ride and, so, historically, it is a battle that has always been.
However, to get to the heart of the matter, which is to say the heart of the man who was all heart, let’s digress to a few factual details about the biography of Mr. Baldwin. Born the first of nine children within the family environment of a strict Baptist preacher as head of the family, James was a fully accomplished and ready-sprung candidate of propaganda from atop a so-called spiritual pulpit by the time he was fourteen. It would take his father’s death and his own natural instincts to develop before he crossed over from savior of souls to journalistic savior. A transition that was permanent, and one that landed him exactl...