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| North London, 6 August 2011 |
A local resident reported, "The police seem very frightened at the moment, people are unstoppable. They've broken into various businesses, jewellery shops, bookies, it's absolutely crazy. They've beaten up a man for talking to the fire brigade."
People do not behave like this unless they are seriously alienated from authority and wider society.
James Baldwin’s book was published in 1963 and was about the position of black Americans, but its observations apply to many alienated communities within western societies still.
“…the white man’s profound desire not to be judged by those who are not white, not to be seen as he is.”
“We are controlled by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster.”
“How can one respect, let alone adopt, the values of a people who do not, on any level whatever, live the way they say they do, or the way they say they should? “
“The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise to power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and bring down the curtain on the American dream.”
“I know that what I'm asking is impossible. But in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand—and one is, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible.”
Baldwin’s title comes from the negro spiritual, ‘Mary, don’t you weep’, "God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water the fire next time."
