When Baldwin talks about how old he was before he knew he was an American it hurt me. I had the same experience back in '06 when I traveled to Europe for the first time and was asked if I were an American. It never occurred to me before that that I was indeed American. That moment changed me. It caused me to see the ceiling that had been placed over my head and it caused me to garner a determination to be more than what my country said I was. Thank you so much for the content you post. It is so appreciated and so needed.
Phyllis Russell, I'm a 78 year old white woman. . .and I first traveled abroad when I was 25 (1968). It was the Middle East. I was not homesick exactly, but I missed things "American" - people, breafast, etc. When we got to Cairo, I began to see Black people. . . and had the inpulse to rush and great a fellow American. My husband - sensing what was going on . . . quietly reminded me that I was in Africa! Maybe that was a reflection on me, but I took it be reflecting of Americans. (It was me. . my own growing up experience. . . schools that were predominantly Black. . . Motown was the soundtrack of my life. . .etc.)
I remember the same experience! I was serving in the Air Force in Germany the first time I was called an American. I was 26 years old. A captain in the military And I heard a German on the telephone call ahead and make a reservation for me and my mother and she called us “two American women.” Not “two black women.” She identified us by our nationality. I was 26. That was 10 years ago. And I will never forget. To be seen as American for the first time. But as soon as I got back to The States, I was constantly reminded over and over that summer that I wasn’t quite American. I was an other.
@@UKBamagurl funny i had the same experience. my dad was in the army. we traveled all over it seemed. we were always called americans . when we came home , we were not called anything or reminded we we not quite american. we are not black, we are italian/pr.however very dark. parents were immigrants. so how did you feel other? who and how were you reminded that?
Thorough conversation...it is interesting that Mead talks about her not being responsible for the atrocities committed in this country. Baldwin explains that we are ALL responsible for creating a society where hate is the widespread norm.
@Traci Waters-Fashoro I thought of it as well. Baldwin is someone who clearly points out whatever he disagrees on but this time, he was quite lenient. Nevertheless, he executed his conversation in eloquence and grace. I would recommend reading his interview with Chinua Achinebe. Great minds, brilliant conversation!
Chuckles Savini: Because the negative impacts of institutional racism linger to this day. Because white, wealthy, powerful men continue to deny the consequences of institutional racism. Because racial healing is NOT possible until after we as a nation face the shame and hypocrisy of our collective narrative. Phone me and we’ll talk. (269)276-6342
The dialogue is intricate. Early on, Mead spoke about how terrible it is only to give attention to something when things get violent. They both agreed that things had to be acted upon to prevent said violence in the first place. Later, Baldwin mentioned apathy, that people just didn't care enough. Mead argued that it was frustration, that people cared but didn't know what to do. When Baldwin brought up the four little girls and expressed his guilt over not being able to prevent their deaths, Mead told him that he wasn't responsible. I thought that was the apathy Baldwin meant. People can feel that a situation is so hopeless that they dissociate themselves from any responsibility regarding the matter. He felt that the country as a whole could have cooperated and done something to sway its hostile climate, something that would have precluded such a bombing. When he says that the past is now, he's saying that as we live and breathe we are shaping history. What we do now becomes history; therefore, as a whole we are all responsible for the current shape of things. No one from the past can bear responsibility, because they aren't present to influence things. We are alive; the world can be as we wish it if we take responsibility and action to make it so.
@@TigerPrawn_ , I'm just reading it again, and I'm shocked that I wrote it. My surprise makes me realize that if I were not myself, I would think it well-written. I don't think I could have read it more objectively. Thank you and the other commenter for bringing my attention back to this and thanks for appreciating it.
I think there’s a distinction between individual response and structural forces at play that needs to be considered before thinking about what apathy means in this context. For example, the presence of homelessness elicits a strong human response (that is, if you’re not a sociopath or deeply cynical property owner) of concern and desire to help. However, one’s individual action in addressing homelessness in any meaningful way is obviously futile. Even if one were in the position to help a homeless person (through a direct offer of food, money, temporary housing), it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the plight of homeless people, broadly speaking. So is it a moral failure of the individual to pass a homeless person on the street and not do something? To whistle on past and “go about one’s business”? What does it mean to see something that makes you feel bad and not respond? What is our responsibility? Another way to put it: what is the best, most productive way to direct our energies over an issue we feel genuine concern for? Another example is climate change. Our individual efforts to “minimize our carbon-footprint” are clearly meaningless. Nonetheless, by focusing on it it gives us a feeling that we’re “doing something,” which is better than nothing. However, what’s obviously needed to truly address climate change (a global issue in the most literal sense) is well beyond one’s individual capacity to act. It requires nothing less than a large-scale governmental response, in collaboration with industry, regulators, labour, economists etc, and in cooperation with other governments, both foreign and domestic. But this can only happen if enough of us become engaged and make a lot of noise and demand action. This is how we understand activism. It is a democratic phenomenon borne out of individual feelings and a deep-seated sense of ethical responsibility. In this sense, feeling bad without finding a way to direct those bad feelings toward a good result (ie, meaningful action with goals and long-term solutions in mind) is itself a kind of apathy - an atrophying of the spirit. This is the paradox then: we’re both in history (living it, in a sense) and outside, observing it. We are responsible in some ways but clearly not in others - and this is of course relative to a host of other factors that beset the individual, including but not limited to economic, geographic, political as well as our own position in relation to power and ownership etc. So what then does it mean to be a “concerned citizen”? How great is our responsibility, our sense of duty to our own higher ideals? Apathy is a form of giving up, but just when we’ve reached that point, that is something that only we can judge for ourselves. That is our privilege and our burden.
Feeling your hunger, perhaps you would enjoy a continuing on this important conversation. Dr. Marc Gafni has responded to this conversation and added important dharma of 'Unique Responsibility'. You're welcome to watch our clip called "A Covenant Between the Generations - Beyond Collective Guilt" ua-cam.com/video/BLM5TWpUnmE/v-deo.html
The most important issue is that James Baldwin revisited his youth and observed the racial climate and how it helped him discover America for what it was. He was trying to convey that whites will always be this way and nothing can change it. They are paving a safe space for their kids at the expense of oppression against blacks. Margaret didn't want James to continue to drag her People and took offensive with it. She is like most whites. She tried to make him see hisself as a black person who had made it and that he didn't need to play a victim role. The truth is blacks may play the victim role but whites are the victimizer. Stop being a victimizer and I'll stop being a victim. FYI - there are many whites who don't feel this way but collectively YES. There is bad in all races and their is good. Police officers are here to protect white property and control drugs. Instead of going to the suburban areas where a lot of drugs are being pushed, they rather lock up poor black and brown people.
From a police perspective, it's not about where the drugs are pushed, it's about where violence over drugs is being committed. Most transactions in the suburbs go quite well as both parties generally have assets that they built up over time which they do not want to lose. Urban areas often have drugs being sold on the street by people who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, which means that streets become territory for gangs to conquer and fight over with each other, causing deaths. Suburban drug dealers have their customers call them and then drive over to their home to hang out for 10-15 minutes. Competition in the marketplace for drugs, in urban areas, takes its form in the shape of violence more often than competition in suburban areas, which more often takes its form in the shape of prices, availability, variety in drug, etc. Wealth + Drugs = You're generally safe from anything other than the drug itself. Poverty + Drugs = Violence It's not some engineered oppression, it's caused by the conditions that they're selling drugs in, this is pretty obvious with a lot of evidence to back it up -- forget drug busts, just look at records for violent crime / gang violence. There's far more desperation and power grabs, less organization, this will always lead to violence, which is what the police care more about. The answer is not to redirect the police, the answer is to end the government's War on Drugs.
Read Necromancer: Absolutely! Which is why all drugs should be decriminalized. It’s rewarding and pleasantly surprising to find mutually respectful dialogue in UA-cam comments.
What a romantic idea to say there's an oppression of black people by white people When the truth is there's an oppression of ALL the poor by the rich REGARDLESS of "colour, race etc" The race issue is just a distraction ( a divide and conquer) to what's really going on ,IE Money and POWER And the rest is bullshit Fact !! 🤒
Some big islamophobic and racist sentiments coming from Margaret Mead. It makes for some uncomfortable listening, but I always admire Baldwin's grace, humour and patience in conversation.
I shit you not, I believed I had wasted my time listening to this discourse until 1:35:00 ....that last 10 minutes made it completely worth it for me. I was beginning to wonder if Baldwin realized what type of "white" person he was speaking to. I realized early on in the conversation that he was wasting his time. But then he started spitting those JB facts in a sarcastic manner, in a way only he knows how. Mead's brain couldn't handle that truth.
I Absolutely Love This Discussion......... James Baldwin is Amazingly Eloquent and Beautifully Articulate as usual and im loving how he's throwing shade at her......😀
@@chucklessavini1778 sounds like you're the racist. Shame on you for shaming a black woman just for using her voice to express an opinion. You're what's wrong with America. Go sort yourself out.
Chuckles Savini: I regret you refer to her as moron. Otherwise, I agree entirely this was relatively balanced conversation from place of mutual respect.
His epilogue was devastating. Even the dissonant Margaret had to sit there in awe at its brutal but eloquent delivery. Unbelievable that it wasn't rehearsed.what a wordsmith
Thank you so much for making this available. I've been trying to find a copy for our academic library, and this makes it so much easier to share with faculty and students.
Here is the true Margeret Mead and the face of 'white' privilege in America. This was *barely* a conversation: she dominated, patronized, admonished him like a child and constantly dictated the narrative - something that I have consistently dealt with in situations involving 'white' people who claim to be 'liberal'. She said the actual words, "I refuse to accept that!" In regard to taking responsibility for the suffering of sweatshop workers in Burma, as if we are not connected to those individuals in a myriad of ways beyond geographical location, and therein lies the essence of America. Mr. Baldwin was a consummate gentleman; I would have told her that her 'white' supremacy programming was showing. She once said about education that it is a construct that takes complex ideas and distills them down to more useful information which facilitates functioning within this industrial society. She described how they tell children that the writing implement in their hand is a "pencil" even though it is actually a carved piece of wood with lead inside and an eraser on top used for writing. So that reality of its finer, precise components is disintegrated and pressed down into a simple word called "pencil". Many would offer that, of course, that is an easier way of representing it. And it yes, it is, however the issue arises because it does away with the more complex reality all together; renders it superfluous and relegates it to obscurity. This renders 'English' to being deceitful, trains people to dispense with critical thinking and going "outside the box" and stifles the brain; limiting the creation of new pathways. Hence teaching people "how to think" (Ms. Mead). I do not subscribe to teaching people what *OR* how to think - neither produces healthy perceptions. The thought process is organic and creative, plastic and flexible not to be dispensed like training a pet. It is time to awaken from the American Dreaming. __________________________________________________
It’s supposed to be a debate, not a one sided conversation. I know there’s a trend now about getting white people not to say anything that clashes with black perspective but we live in a free society.
@@BLTKellys She was condescending and patronizing to Baldwin; or she tried to be. He was just too damned brilliant to be dominated and subjugated by her.
I find this conversation interesting being that James Baldwin earlier speaking at Oxford University told the white folk in a speech that the American Negro was in fact the American Indians, and when you're cheering on the cowboy fighting the Indian, you are in fact cheering for our own demise, I think his Oxford speech was in 63 or 64 and this is 71! James Baldwin the great was in fact telling the truth about us being the Indian!
Listening to this in 2020, I see how little the people of this country have progressed. And I'm sorry to hear Mead sounding quite obstinate and unwilling to listen/respect the heart of what Jimmy is saying.
I'm a 31 year old male Caucasian in present day 2020, born and raised in America. I would agree with a lot of what these two people are saying in this video.
guruuvy your uncle has had such a profound and lasting wondrous impact on me. can't believe I just no discovered this convo/interview. It the most polite sense Margaret Mead is doing my head in. Of course that is because I'm far more interested it what James Baldwin has to say :)
@@noahotte2960 systemic racism [systemic racism] NOUN discrimination or unequal treatment on the basis of membership in a particular ethnic group (typically one that is a minority or marginalized), arising from systems, structures, or expectations that have become established within society or an institution
Entitlement. It comes hand in hand with the pale skin. It's in the White man's DNA. Only in walking in the Black man's shoes can a White person truly understand. And we all know that no White person would ever want to be Black. Noooooo.
Baldwin is one of the most concise speakers/writers I know of. What viewers may not know is that this conversation was 7+ hours, not just 1:45, so not everything is in context.
This is such an important conversation for everyone to hear. It is good to see a respectful dialogue between two people with different views. There is more communication here in the pre-internet world than we have today where people frequently attack each other rather than sticking to the topic under discussion. Baldwin is Stellar.
That's for sure. I used to admire Margret Mead (well she did lead an interesting life and did some ground-breaking work) but I am disappointed in this interview to hear her carry on, and on…..sounding altogether too full of herself.
@@Souljahna ...She definitely should have been way less talkative. anthropology does not give her some kind of expertise on black people experience. she wouldn't let the dude even get the last word even once.
I have reconsidered my opinion of her she is a nutter. He has the patience of a saint with this old crazy. What a lot of nonsense she talks bla bla bla
Anna Deveare Smith speaks about this discussion during In the Field. Amazing! Thank you for posting it! Great admirer of Baldwin, Smith, and, yes, Mead. Baldwin goofs on her, quite a bit. Just fascinating.
A fascinating except of the original (I heard from my parents and others that the original talk was almost 7 hours long! Oh to be able to hear the whole discussion... in fact, oh, to have been a fly on the wall watching expressions, seeing the entrances and departures and the audience expressions). It's a gift to hear these voices
What a great conversation between Margaret Meade and James Baldwin. Great writers and honesty between both. "When one touches one, one feels." What is the meaning of touch? They understood. Carl Jung also did. Get off the cross. We need the wood. What does blame do? Only creates more misunderstandings. Learn to think outside the box and learn. It is a journey all must embrace. Or stand still amongst with ignorance. One may learn to have an open mind and understand beliefs that lead to more divisions, a story centuries old. Speak the truth, James Baldwin and Margaret Meade. There are great truths in all major religions, as men learned to pit one against one another and radicalized them. This is the downfall that taught race against race and divisions in countries of greed on all sides. I love philosophy and world histories. Begin with the Gilgamesh Epic and work your way up throughout the centuries. Philosophy and histories never stay stagnet. It is always growing as truth unfolds. What is knowledge, what is intelligence, what is the intellect used for?What is thought? Eastern philosophers, 3500 hundred years before Christ or more. Spiro Agnew? Look at us today in 2023. Look at what happened to Margaret Meade with her science in New Guinea? She was dogged. James Baldwin understands that we all have blood on our hands, when one sees that we are all a part of one another. Krishnamurti!!! I am the world and the world is me. Krishnamurti was a great philosopher. When one knows, one doesn't know and when one doesn't know one may. What is violence, what is anger, what is pleasure? What is the difference between pleasure, me first- self gratification the "I " the ego divides?
Why this woman really loves to hear herself talk this seems like a discussion into an echo chamber. Thankful for James to make this listenable but my goodness
hmm, definitely a "dated" conversation to put it politely. @45:52 Mead asserts that Muslims don't have a sense of universal brotherhood that includes non-Muslims. Baldwin's following argument is lengthy, (w)holistic and so gently chiding that it is definitely something to study over and over again.
Luckily I have the book that has this whole conversation and still read it in my regular rotation of reading since it was assigned to us in college...great stuff..
Great!!! Love to hear both. I wish I can buy the book but is very expensive. I don't understand why people insist in comparing Baldwin with Mead and who is "better or have the last word", their knowledge is from different disciplines and experiences.
Interesting when they talked about "White and Good and Ghost" I've always thought it strange how the word 'Fair' can mean both beautiful and light, and wondered if the meaning of beautiful came to describe someones light skin/hair. Also, if you can get your hands on a copy of the book, I would thoroughly recommend, it has bits which aren't included in the recording. I found a copy at my library, it was in the basement and they had to hunt for it!
It is so disrespectful when someone tries to finish your sentence and can’t relate or even know what you’re talking about. So many times I heard her trying to finish his sentence but all she would do is mumble. Not only that I hate when someone else tries to take their oppression as a way to minimize that of Black people. Not only is it rude but it is disrespect. No one on the planet knows or can relate to the oppression of the black man/woman.
Fantastic conversation! I've listened to it in its entirety a few times and in parts even more. Margaret Mead was correct when she said "this is a fundamental difference" and went on to say Baldwin was speaking like a "Greek orthodox" --which I take to mean hyperbolic and unnuanced. Indeed their acceptance or denial of the violence committed by their countrymen is a fundamental difference that haunts us to this day. Many of us continue to be Meads who take no responsibility for the bad acts allowed to happen through the cracks and fissures of our imperfect society while also celebrating its successes. I say you must do both. Your society is exactly what you've inherited, produced, and accepted through complicity. All of it is us, none of it can be shirked.
@@marybourgeois4408 Um, I actually read (rather than listen to her voice) the transcript/book (I'm a Baldwin scholar and have read everything he wrote or said) as well as a very interesting NYTimes review of the book which put their conversation into an interesting framework. And I still am in deep disagreement with her take on individual responsibility and guilt. But thank you very much for the condescending reply.
Even when she's trying to be impartial, you can hear her superior attitude in her word choice. She's a perfect example of how can be equally frustrating to speak to so-called liberal whites
@@BLTKellys making an observation does not make one superior. If you see a kid getting knocked out by a bully everyday, and you call attention to it, does that make you superior? You calling me superior because I have the nerve to call this white lady out as condescending, speaks a lot more about you than it does me.
@@nino2u it’s a conversation, she is there to talk not just to listen. I get it that everyone white now has to shut up but real life doesn’t work like that. Communication is the only hope for understanding, not silencing people.
We got our ideas on morality THROUGH Christianity, but not FROM Christianity. Anyone who says thinks that these ideas were just invented a mere 2000 years ago has a hopelessly warped sense of humanity and history.
Two incredible great minds and hearts...Would love to hear how their conversation resonated in each of them in the weeks following.... Margret Mead and James Baldwin have long been in my top 100 Americans
No, Margaret Mead, you and Jimmy are both unusual people; not at all "average". Stop contradicting him! The country was doomed then and it is more doomed now, and Jimmy sees it- saw it.
i disagree. it is doomed if you keep saying and hearing it and believing it is doomed. in 1945 there were no black baseball, football , nba players and no black leaders. in 1980 more were in all 3 sports . great leaders. just recently a black president. i do not think it is doomed. americans need to realize how lucky we have it compared to others who are screaming to come here
I think Baldwin found value in this conversation to see how issues are perceived and comprehended from a different viewpoint. To understand other motivations is extremely powerful. And I think he realized Mead didn't know the truth of how she was also part of a narrative.
Who snuck the brandy into Meads glass? & Baldwin (we may not be guilty,but "we are all responsible for...") doesn't seem to be speaking from the position of a Greek Orthodox but of a Kantian
So fresh. I love the bits on "Womens lib", and the looming extinction....you can just slip in "Climate Change" for MAD. I think it's the most interesting conversation I ever heard.
This is very good. People who say that African American citizens are getting too much help are just as guilty as those who say that White people have had it easy. However, once each group realizes that we are all suffering, we will see the need to work together for our mutual benefit.
Too much help?! Who says that?! Let's make this as simple as possible. If you were forced to work for 5 years without any benefit coming to you personally and all of your efforts go to the enrichment of someone else ,and then you were suddenly released and told to 'catch up' on your own ,while those you enriched, used that enrichment to put not only road blocks but immovable objects in your way because they don't want you to catch up, can't allow you to catch up because their psyche can't handle it, what would YOU do? Protest? Fight? Burn some shit down? Start a war? What WOULDN'T you do to ensure that what happened to you wouldn't happen to your children?
Sure...but white people suffered by their own ideas of people. The economic system would be a lot more beneficial for poor white people if they were so busy thinking Black people where the enemy.
"You don't know a thing about the you college kids that are going into the cops today." ...I wish she was alive to see the homicidal legacy their lofty education imbued. Poor Margaret. Was she well meaning or just cognitive dissonant.
She, as are all of us, is a product of her time and circumstances. I think she’d be fascinated by the commonalities between riots, police brutality...of the 1950-70 and what we are experiencing today.
I fondly recalled my surprising encouter with Mr. Baldwin here in New Orleans on St. Ann Street Though he had just spent time listening to Brazilian bird music, he was easily agitated
Margaret Mead has interesting things to say, but she is dominating the conversation-taking up 99% of the time talking, and interrupting Baldwin repeatedly when he begins to speak. I wish she’d be quiet and listen to him.
wow. meeting of the minds. don't think ANYTHING resolved here....but dammm....did they lay out the arguments....both from their own unique life perspectives. honest thinking...mostly unfiltered. rare.
When Baldwin talks about how old he was before he knew he was an American it hurt me. I had the same experience back in '06 when I traveled to Europe for the first time and was asked if I were an American. It never occurred to me before that that I was indeed American. That moment changed me. It caused me to see the ceiling that had been placed over my head and it caused me to garner a determination to be more than what my country said I was. Thank you so much for the content you post. It is so appreciated and so needed.
What a valuable insight you’ve shared. I had never considered that point. Thank you.
Phyllis Russell, I'm a 78 year old white woman. . .and I first traveled abroad when I was 25 (1968). It was the Middle East. I was not homesick exactly, but I missed things "American" - people, breafast, etc. When we got to Cairo, I began to see Black people. . . and had the inpulse to rush and great a fellow American. My husband - sensing what was going on . . . quietly reminded me that I was in Africa! Maybe that was a reflection on me, but I took it be reflecting of Americans. (It was me. . my own growing up experience. . . schools that were predominantly Black. . . Motown was the soundtrack of my life. . .etc.)
really, how did you not know you were american. where were you born? what did your birth cerificate say unknown.
I remember the same experience! I was serving in the Air Force in Germany the first time I was called an American. I was 26 years old. A captain in the military And I heard a German on the telephone call ahead and make a reservation for me and my mother and she called us “two American women.” Not “two black women.” She identified us by our nationality. I was 26. That was 10 years ago. And I will never forget. To be seen as American for the first time.
But as soon as I got back to The States, I was constantly reminded over and over that summer that I wasn’t quite American. I was an other.
@@UKBamagurl funny i had the same experience. my dad was in the army. we traveled all over it seemed. we were always called americans . when we came home , we were not called anything or reminded we we not quite american. we are not black, we are italian/pr.however very dark. parents were immigrants. so how did you feel other? who and how were you reminded that?
"ADULTS ARE RARE, MOST PEOPLE ARE GROWN UP CHILDREN..." -- BALDWIN
17 YR OLD CHILD OF SOUTH AFRICA HERE, 47 YEARS AFTER THIS CONVERSATION!!!
Keep Going
@@chucklessavini1778 what fuck are you saying
Thorough conversation...it is interesting that Mead talks about her not being responsible for the atrocities committed in this country. Baldwin explains that we are ALL responsible for creating a society where hate is the widespread norm.
@Traci Waters-Fashoro I thought of it as well. Baldwin is someone who clearly points out whatever he disagrees on but this time, he was quite lenient. Nevertheless, he executed his conversation in eloquence and grace. I would recommend reading his interview with Chinua Achinebe. Great minds, brilliant conversation!
What’s a Native Black American, please?
Chuckles Savini: Because the negative impacts of institutional racism linger to this day. Because white, wealthy, powerful men continue to deny the consequences of institutional racism. Because racial healing is NOT possible until after we as a nation face the shame and hypocrisy of our collective narrative. Phone me and we’ll talk. (269)276-6342
Mead seems to be trying to impose authority over Baldwin. I can listen to Brother James all day long. I've admired him since the 1960's.
@@glynncampbell3930non color can’t help themselves from having power over color
The dialogue is intricate. Early on, Mead spoke about how terrible it is only to give attention to something when things get violent. They both agreed that things had to be acted upon to prevent said violence in the first place. Later, Baldwin mentioned apathy, that people just didn't care enough. Mead argued that it was frustration, that people cared but didn't know what to do. When Baldwin brought up the four little girls and expressed his guilt over not being able to prevent their deaths, Mead told him that he wasn't responsible. I thought that was the apathy Baldwin meant. People can feel that a situation is so hopeless that they dissociate themselves from any responsibility regarding the matter. He felt that the country as a whole could have cooperated and done something to sway its hostile climate, something that would have precluded such a bombing. When he says that the past is now, he's saying that as we live and breathe we are shaping history. What we do now becomes history; therefore, as a whole we are all responsible for the current shape of things. No one from the past can bear responsibility, because they aren't present to influence things. We are alive; the world can be as we wish it if we take responsibility and action to make it so.
Christopher Harley This gave me chills, the way you explained the apathy. So true.
@@TigerPrawn_ , I'm just reading it again, and I'm shocked that I wrote it. My surprise makes me realize that if I were not myself, I would think it well-written. I don't think I could have read it more objectively. Thank you and the other commenter for bringing my attention back to this and thanks for appreciating it.
I think white people were more fascinated by black people than the opposite.
What a beautiful essay! You should write a serious paper on the topic, do some research and expand on your ideas.😊
I think there’s a distinction between individual response and structural forces at play that needs to be considered before thinking about what apathy means in this context. For example, the presence of homelessness elicits a strong human response (that is, if you’re not a sociopath or deeply cynical property owner) of concern and desire to help. However, one’s individual action in addressing homelessness in any meaningful way is obviously futile. Even if one were in the position to help a homeless person (through a direct offer of food, money, temporary housing), it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the plight of homeless people, broadly speaking. So is it a moral failure of the individual to pass a homeless person on the street and not do something? To whistle on past and “go about one’s business”? What does it mean to see something that makes you feel bad and not respond? What is our responsibility? Another way to put it: what is the best, most productive way to direct our energies over an issue we feel genuine concern for?
Another example is climate change. Our individual efforts to “minimize our carbon-footprint” are clearly meaningless. Nonetheless, by focusing on it it gives us a feeling that we’re “doing something,” which is better than nothing. However, what’s obviously needed to truly address climate change (a global issue in the most literal sense) is well beyond one’s individual capacity to act. It requires nothing less than a large-scale governmental response, in collaboration with industry, regulators, labour, economists etc, and in cooperation with other governments, both foreign and domestic. But this can only happen if enough of us become engaged and make a lot of noise and demand action. This is how we understand activism. It is a democratic phenomenon borne out of individual feelings and a deep-seated sense of ethical responsibility.
In this sense, feeling bad without finding a way to direct those bad feelings toward a good result (ie, meaningful action with goals and long-term solutions in mind) is itself a kind of apathy - an atrophying of the spirit. This is the paradox then: we’re both in history (living it, in a sense) and outside, observing it. We are responsible in some ways but clearly not in others - and this is of course relative to a host of other factors that beset the individual, including but not limited to economic, geographic, political as well as our own position in relation to power and ownership etc.
So what then does it mean to be a “concerned citizen”? How great is our responsibility, our sense of duty to our own higher ideals? Apathy is a form of giving up, but just when we’ve reached that point, that is something that only we can judge for ourselves. That is our privilege and our burden.
I could listen to Jimmy for hours. A great,great man.
Wow, "the chickens have come home to roost."
It was either this, or harvey🤠
Baldwin is showing GREAT PATIENCE and RESTRAINT here. ❤
My God,I've never been so elevated. My spirit hungers for more of this. I truly miss you James Baldwin.
Feeling your hunger, perhaps you would enjoy a continuing on this important conversation. Dr. Marc Gafni has responded to this conversation and added important dharma of 'Unique Responsibility'. You're welcome to watch our clip called "A Covenant Between the Generations - Beyond Collective Guilt" ua-cam.com/video/BLM5TWpUnmE/v-deo.html
I felt the same way as I watched.
She still feels inherently, the need to teach James. That's why she never picks up on his subtle and nuanced jabs at her arguments.
Oh she picked up on it. she didn't address it directly because she had no way to.
@@skyjuiceification narcissistic mentally😔😔 it's sad these have lived this way for so long.
He had the patience of an angel in this conversation because I may have been throwing left hooks LOL
Alan Peters Margaret Mead is considerably older than James Baldwin. I suspect Jimmy is simply deferring to an elder.
Mary Bourgeois uh...no
The most important issue is that James Baldwin revisited his youth and observed the racial climate and how it helped him discover America for what it was. He was trying to convey that whites will always be this way and nothing can change it. They are paving a safe space for their kids at the expense of oppression against blacks. Margaret didn't want James to continue to drag her People and took offensive with it. She is like most whites. She tried to make him see hisself as a black person who had made it and that he didn't need to play a victim role. The truth is blacks may play the victim role but whites are the victimizer. Stop being a victimizer and I'll stop being a victim. FYI - there are many whites who don't feel this way but collectively YES. There is bad in all races and their is good. Police officers are here to protect white property and control drugs. Instead of going to the suburban areas where a lot of drugs are being pushed, they rather lock up poor black and brown people.
From a police perspective, it's not about where the drugs are pushed, it's about where violence over drugs is being committed. Most transactions in the suburbs go quite well as both parties generally have assets that they built up over time which they do not want to lose. Urban areas often have drugs being sold on the street by people who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, which means that streets become territory for gangs to conquer and fight over with each other, causing deaths. Suburban drug dealers have their customers call them and then drive over to their home to hang out for 10-15 minutes. Competition in the marketplace for drugs, in urban areas, takes its form in the shape of violence more often than competition in suburban areas, which more often takes its form in the shape of prices, availability, variety in drug, etc.
Wealth + Drugs = You're generally safe from anything other than the drug itself.
Poverty + Drugs = Violence
It's not some engineered oppression, it's caused by the conditions that they're selling drugs in, this is pretty obvious with a lot of evidence to back it up -- forget drug busts, just look at records for violent crime / gang violence. There's far more desperation and power grabs, less organization, this will always lead to violence, which is what the police care more about.
The answer is not to redirect the police, the answer is to end the government's War on Drugs.
Read Necromancer: Absolutely! Which is why all drugs should be decriminalized. It’s rewarding and pleasantly surprising to find mutually respectful dialogue in UA-cam comments.
What a romantic idea to say there's an oppression of black people by white people When the truth is there's an oppression of ALL the poor by the rich REGARDLESS of "colour, race etc" The race issue is just a distraction ( a divide and conquer) to what's really going on ,IE Money and POWER And the rest is bullshit Fact !! 🤒
Some big islamophobic and racist sentiments coming from Margaret Mead. It makes for some uncomfortable listening, but I always admire Baldwin's grace, humour and patience in conversation.
Not ignoring James Baldwin!
He is far too profound to be ignored 🎉❤
I shit you not, I believed I had wasted my time listening to this discourse until 1:35:00 ....that last 10 minutes made it completely worth it for me. I was beginning to wonder if Baldwin realized what type of "white" person he was speaking to. I realized early on in the conversation that he was wasting his time. But then he started spitting those JB facts in a sarcastic manner, in a way only he knows how. Mead's brain couldn't handle that truth.
I Absolutely Love This Discussion......... James Baldwin is Amazingly Eloquent and Beautifully Articulate as usual and im loving how he's throwing shade at her......😀
@@chucklessavini1778 sounds like you're the racist. Shame on you for shaming a black woman just for using her voice to express an opinion. You're what's wrong with America. Go sort yourself out.
Chuckles Savini: I regret you refer to her as moron. Otherwise, I agree entirely this was relatively balanced conversation from place of mutual respect.
"But the fact that it's universal doesn't mean that I will accept it" ____ Power!!!!
That stood out to me also!!👍
His epilogue was devastating. Even the dissonant Margaret had to sit there in awe at its brutal but eloquent delivery. Unbelievable that it wasn't rehearsed.what a wordsmith
Avery good conversation on a subject that should be done in public schools. Thanks James.
Thank you so much for making this available. I've been trying to find a copy for our academic library, and this makes it so much easier to share with faculty and students.
Wow. I love this channel. Keep up the awesome work.
Agreed
Here is the true Margeret Mead and the face of 'white' privilege in America. This was *barely* a conversation: she dominated, patronized, admonished him like a child and constantly dictated the narrative - something that I have consistently dealt with in situations involving 'white' people who claim to be 'liberal'. She said the actual words, "I refuse to accept that!" In regard to taking responsibility for the suffering of sweatshop workers in Burma, as if we are not connected to those individuals in a myriad of ways beyond geographical location, and therein lies the essence of America. Mr. Baldwin was a consummate gentleman; I would have told her that her 'white' supremacy programming was showing. She once said about education that it is a construct that takes complex ideas and distills them down to more useful information which facilitates functioning within this industrial society. She described how they tell children that the writing implement in their hand is a "pencil" even though it is actually a carved piece of wood with lead inside and an eraser on top used for writing. So that reality of its finer, precise components is disintegrated and pressed down into a simple word called "pencil". Many would offer that, of course, that is an easier way of representing it. And it yes, it is, however the issue arises because it does away with the more complex reality all together; renders it superfluous and relegates it to obscurity. This renders 'English' to being deceitful, trains people to dispense with critical thinking and going "outside the box" and stifles the brain; limiting the creation of new pathways. Hence teaching people "how to think" (Ms. Mead). I do not subscribe to teaching people what *OR* how to think - neither produces healthy perceptions. The thought process is organic and creative, plastic and flexible not to be dispensed like training a pet. It is time to awaken from the American Dreaming.
__________________________________________________
It’s supposed to be a debate, not a one sided conversation. I know there’s a trend now about getting white people not to say anything that clashes with black perspective but we live in a free society.
@@BLTKellys She was condescending and patronizing to Baldwin; or she tried to be. He was just too damned brilliant to be dominated and subjugated by her.
@@sonteesontee4227 you obviously don’t know what a debate is.
@@BLTKellys I do. I also know what patronization and condescension is.
I find this conversation interesting being that James Baldwin earlier speaking at Oxford University told the white folk in a speech that the American Negro was in fact the American Indians, and when you're cheering on the cowboy fighting the Indian, you are in fact cheering for our own demise, I think his Oxford speech was in 63 or 64 and this is 71! James Baldwin the great was in fact telling the truth about us being the Indian!
We are Indians and cowboys
Listening to this in 2020, I see how little the people of this country have progressed. And I'm sorry to hear Mead sounding quite obstinate and unwilling to listen/respect the heart of what Jimmy is saying.
2024
I'm a 31 year old male Caucasian in present day 2020, born and raised in America. I would agree with a lot of what these two people are saying in this video.
We don't get much food for thought like this today
He was real and very intelligent in provoking a conversation that she snarled to listen to. She gave meaningless ways out. As usual all talk.
À great conversation between 2 old friends who respect each other deeply, and dropping knowledge bombs together.
Thanks for sharing this! Mr. Baldwin was my Uncle by marriage. Unfortunately he was living in Europe while I was growng up.
guruuvy wow wow and wow. I'd have given anything to have met him.
Two of my older cousins are his niece and nephew and they carry on his legacy.
guruuvy your uncle has had such a profound and lasting wondrous impact on me. can't believe I just no discovered this convo/interview. It the most polite sense Margaret Mead is doing my head in. Of course that is because I'm far more interested it what James Baldwin has to say :)
guruuvy Beautiful! ✨🙏🏽✨❤️✨🙌🏾✨😘
Great recorded conversation!!!! So happy i came across this channel
This has quickly become one of my favorite channels on youtube
🔥 straight educational 🔥
"america will not change". a hard bitter truth echoing into today.
Policies are forever white people's power! Until we have the power to change policies we will never be FREE!
this has been so very powerful to listen to in 2017
2019-Too
And now... 2020
2021 as well.
in 2023 even more so!!! TN3!!!! Rising!!!
mead was unaware of her own systemic racism. it's difficult to get rid of it because it's so insidious. it creeps in without our knowledge.
@@noahotte2960 systemic racism
[systemic racism]
NOUN
discrimination or unequal treatment on the basis of membership in a particular ethnic group (typically one that is a minority or marginalized), arising from systems, structures, or expectations that have become established within society or an institution
Entitlement. It comes hand in hand with the pale skin. It's in the White man's DNA. Only in walking in the Black man's shoes can a White person truly understand. And we all know that no White person would ever want to be Black. Noooooo.
Wow! This is now 50 years old. And it couldn’t be any more timely
Baldwin is one of the most concise speakers/writers I know of. What viewers may not know is that this conversation was 7+ hours, not just 1:45, so not everything is in context.
Where can people hear the full 7 hours of this speech???
This is extraordinary - James Baldwin and Margaret Mead one on one - two legends.
This is an awesome conversation! I've listened to this a couple time now.💗
24:30 women lib
This is such an important conversation for everyone to hear. It is good to see a respectful dialogue between two people with different views. There is more communication here in the pre-internet world than we have today where people frequently attack each other rather than sticking to the topic under discussion. Baldwin is Stellar.
how's pizza Fort Worth, TX
breaking the "riddle" and "temptation" of white supremacy down
However she talks far too much.....white talk
That's for sure. I used to admire Margret Mead (well she did lead an interesting life and did some ground-breaking work) but I am disappointed in this interview to hear her carry on, and on…..sounding altogether too full of herself.
mrskauvaka white noise
Souljahna wight ego
@@Souljahna ...She definitely should have been way less talkative. anthropology does not give her some kind of expertise on black people experience. she wouldn't let the dude even get the last word even once.
Quieten down in the peanut gallery or should I say banana gallery.
Fascinating! Many insights relevant in 2020. Thank you for posting.
100 birthday of Mr. James Baldwin, deep salutations.
I have reconsidered my opinion of her she is a nutter. He has the patience of a saint with this old crazy. What a lot of nonsense she talks bla bla bla
Anna Deveare Smith speaks about this discussion during In the Field. Amazing! Thank you for posting it! Great admirer of Baldwin, Smith, and, yes, Mead. Baldwin goofs on her, quite a bit. Just fascinating.
A fascinating except of the original (I heard from my parents and others that the original talk was almost 7 hours long! Oh to be able to hear the whole discussion... in fact, oh, to have been a fly on the wall watching expressions, seeing the entrances and departures and the audience expressions).
It's a gift to hear these voices
Thank you very, very much for posting this interview.
How does this conversation not have 1 million views yet?!
What I hear is two very intelligent, thoughtful, worldly people discussing respectfully their views.
In the large pic James Baldwin has a "Jesus give me strength" expression.
Yea Right! More like Y'ALL listening to this shit😆😆😆
His voice, his tired sighs, "Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well. Well," he needed all the strength he could get to keep his patience.
You need that being black in America
the last 25 minutes of this is just wild .. to great minds at full force with each other ...
Fantastic.Thank you for this dialogue.
What a great conversation between Margaret Meade and James Baldwin.
Great writers and honesty between both.
"When one touches one, one feels." What is the meaning of touch? They understood.
Carl Jung also did.
Get off the cross. We need the wood. What does blame do? Only creates more misunderstandings. Learn to think outside the box and learn. It is a journey all must embrace. Or stand still amongst with ignorance.
One may learn to have an open mind and understand beliefs that lead to more divisions, a story centuries old.
Speak the truth, James Baldwin and Margaret Meade.
There are great truths in all major religions, as men learned to pit one against one another and radicalized them. This is the downfall that taught race against race and divisions in countries of greed on all sides.
I love philosophy and world histories. Begin with the Gilgamesh Epic and work your way up throughout the centuries. Philosophy and histories never stay stagnet. It is always growing as truth unfolds. What is knowledge, what is intelligence, what is the intellect used for?What is thought? Eastern philosophers, 3500 hundred years before Christ or more.
Spiro Agnew? Look at us today in 2023.
Look at what happened to Margaret Meade with her science in New Guinea? She was dogged.
James Baldwin understands that we all have blood on our hands, when one sees that we are all a part of one another.
Krishnamurti!!! I am the world and the world is me.
Krishnamurti was a great philosopher.
When one knows, one doesn't know and when one doesn't know one may.
What is violence, what is anger, what is pleasure? What is the difference between pleasure, me first- self gratification the "I " the ego divides?
Wow, thank you! I have been looking for this for a very long time....
She likes to dominate the conversation and constantly say "both sides". Sounds like someone else from today.
1😊xx m
Why this woman really loves to hear herself talk this seems like a discussion into an echo chamber. Thankful for James to make this listenable but my goodness
I completely agree. I can't take it. I will not be finishing this over. 😠
The Nature of Black (Original People) and white people are very different.
What a great find! Thank you for this.
Lmao. He calmly rattled her and she couldn't handle it.
hmm, definitely a "dated" conversation to put it politely. @45:52 Mead asserts that Muslims don't have a sense of universal brotherhood that includes non-Muslims. Baldwin's following argument is lengthy, (w)holistic and so gently chiding that it is definitely something to study over and over again.
opera.mad if you knew the history of Islam, you would hear the truth in her statement.
Extremely refreshing Debate/Convo. Mr. Baldwin is a Beast
whoa. I could learn so much from listening to this numerous times.
I wish I was alive at the time of James Baldwin to be there for you.
This lady,Should have did this Conversation by herself. . . She knows everything. 😏
I think she would have benefitted from listening at least as much as she talked
"Petite bonne femme bien pensante" --- James Baldwin knew what was! 😂😂😂
powerful, listening is a art!
Luckily I have the book that has this whole conversation and still read it in my regular rotation of reading since it was assigned to us in college...great stuff..
Great!!! Love to hear both. I wish I can buy the book but is very expensive. I don't understand why people insist in comparing Baldwin with Mead and who is "better or have the last word", their knowledge is from different disciplines and experiences.
I am crazy for you, James !
Jeez...I'm exhausted after listening to thatl
INCREDIBLE, INCREDIBLE CONVERSATION! WOW 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Interesting when they talked about "White and Good and Ghost" I've always thought it strange how the word 'Fair' can mean both beautiful and light, and wondered if the meaning of beautiful came to describe someones light skin/hair.
Also, if you can get your hands on a copy of the book, I would thoroughly recommend, it has bits which aren't included in the recording. I found a copy at my library, it was in the basement and they had to hunt for it!
She is extremely subconsciously racist, but Baldwin still entertains a conversation that most would give up on.
That woman keeps over~talking Mr. Baldwin and it is aggravating me. I could not continue to listen to the rapp session. She is irritating.
I came here from the book "what white people can do next" by Emma Dabiri. Thank you so much for making this available!
Same!
It is so disrespectful when someone tries to finish your sentence and can’t relate or even know what you’re talking about. So many times I heard her trying to finish his sentence but all she would do is mumble. Not only that I hate when someone else tries to take their oppression as a way to minimize that of Black people. Not only is it rude but it is disrespect. No one on the planet knows or can relate to the oppression of the black man/woman.
Fantastic conversation! I've listened to it in its entirety a few times and in parts even more. Margaret Mead was correct when she said "this is a fundamental difference" and went on to say Baldwin was speaking like a "Greek orthodox" --which I take to mean hyperbolic and unnuanced. Indeed their acceptance or denial of the violence committed by their countrymen is a fundamental difference that haunts us to this day. Many of us continue to be Meads who take no responsibility for the bad acts allowed to happen through the cracks and fissures of our imperfect society while also celebrating its successes. I say you must do both. Your society is exactly what you've inherited, produced, and accepted through complicity. All of it is us, none of it can be shirked.
Well said, and I agree.
You are right. A society is the entirety of both: the good and the bad parts.
I want to listen to this for Baldwin, but I'm two minutes in and already Mead is irritating the heck out of me.
it gets better towards the end, I had to listen to this 3 times to get past her bs
Kim McClarin: Try to listen with the heart. I’m listening for second time. Many valuable perspectives highly applicable to 2020.
@@marybourgeois4408 Um, I actually read (rather than listen to her voice) the transcript/book (I'm a Baldwin scholar and have read everything he wrote or said) as well as a very interesting NYTimes review of the book which put their conversation into an interesting framework. And I still am in deep disagreement with her take on individual responsibility and guilt. But thank you very much for the condescending reply.
Kim McLarin NYT book review. Thanks for suggestion. Just finished Fire Next Time. What’s your suggestion for my next Baldwin read?
I love this discussion, two sides of one story that's true
Even when she's trying to be impartial, you can hear her superior attitude in her word choice. She's a perfect example of how can be equally frustrating to speak to so-called liberal whites
@Are Jaye yes because my comment does scream superiority!
Stick to the content of what I said instead
@Are Jaye nothing superior in that, but to each their own
Have a nice day
You are being superior yourself Alan. People need to be free to talk without others trying to control their words.
@@BLTKellys making an observation does not make one superior. If you see a kid getting knocked out by a bully everyday, and you call attention to it, does that make you superior?
You calling me superior because I have the nerve to call this white lady out as condescending, speaks a lot more about you than it does me.
@@nino2u it’s a conversation, she is there to talk not just to listen. I get it that everyone white now has to shut up but real life doesn’t work like that. Communication is the only hope for understanding, not silencing people.
Holy shit, this is amazing.
I'm only 10 minutes in to the conversation. Really wishing this talk was moderated so I can hear more from Baldwin and less from Mead.
We got our ideas on morality THROUGH Christianity, but not FROM Christianity.
Anyone who says thinks that these ideas were just invented a mere 2000 years ago has a hopelessly warped sense of humanity and history.
Eloquently spoken from Mr Baldwin
I'm so grateful for James coming to the plant.......
Those cigarettes were causing him grief (COUGH) smh
Two incredible great minds and hearts...Would love to hear how their conversation resonated in each of them in the weeks following.... Margret Mead and James Baldwin have long been in my top 100 Americans
No, Margaret Mead, you and Jimmy are both unusual people; not at all "average". Stop contradicting him! The country was doomed then and it is more doomed now, and Jimmy sees it- saw it.
i disagree. it is doomed if you keep saying and hearing it and believing it is doomed. in 1945 there were no black baseball, football , nba players and no black leaders. in 1980 more were in all 3 sports . great leaders. just recently a black president. i do not think it is doomed. americans need to realize how lucky we have it compared to others who are screaming to come here
reporting from 2020, this is insiteful.
This is awesome
I think Baldwin found value in this conversation to see how issues are perceived and comprehended from a different viewpoint. To understand other motivations is extremely powerful. And I think he realized Mead didn't know the truth of how she was also part of a narrative.
That crazy lady has no clue
She just knows about her comfort
She makes me sick
Who snuck the brandy into Meads glass?
& Baldwin (we may not be guilty,but "we are all responsible for...") doesn't seem to be speaking from the position of a Greek Orthodox but of a Kantian
That was a magnificent ending by Baldwin. The entire conversation was great! An excellent debate!
I feel like I am listening to two people talking about the summer of 2020....with a little more class.
So fresh. I love the bits on "Womens lib", and the looming extinction....you can just slip in "Climate Change" for MAD. I think it's the most interesting conversation I ever heard.
she's wrong because we are the so called "Indians" they first encountered in their violent invasion
“The fact that it’s universal, doesn’t mean I (must) should accept it”…
21:56 absolutely brilliant insight from Baldwin
This is very good. People who say that African American citizens are getting too much help are just as guilty as those who say that White people have had it easy. However, once each group realizes that we are all suffering, we will see the need to work together for our mutual benefit.
Garbage....get the fuck out of here.
Too much help?!
Who says that?!
Let's make this as simple as possible.
If you were forced to work for 5 years without any benefit coming to you personally and all of your efforts go to the enrichment of someone else ,and then you were suddenly released and told to 'catch up' on your own ,while those you enriched, used that enrichment to put not only road blocks but immovable objects in your way because they don't want you to catch up, can't allow you to catch up because their psyche can't handle it, what would YOU do?
Protest?
Fight?
Burn some shit down?
Start a war?
What WOULDN'T you do to ensure that what happened to you wouldn't happen to your children?
Sure...but white people suffered by their own ideas of people. The economic system would be a lot more beneficial for poor white people if they were so busy thinking Black people where the enemy.
R U Beyond Kidding....Lets enslave your ancestors for 250 years & then & only then can we begin to have a conversation....GTFOH
"You don't know a thing about the you college kids that are going into the cops today." ...I wish she was alive to see the homicidal legacy their lofty education imbued. Poor Margaret. Was she well meaning or just cognitive dissonant.
She, as are all of us, is a product of her time and circumstances. I think she’d be fascinated by the commonalities between riots, police brutality...of the 1950-70 and what we are experiencing today.
She is trying to change the mind set of the aboriginal good job standing tall brother baldwin
I fondly recalled my surprising encouter with Mr. Baldwin here in New Orleans on St. Ann Street Though he had just spent time listening to Brazilian bird music, he was easily agitated
Margaret Mead has interesting things to say, but she is dominating the conversation-taking up 99% of the time talking, and interrupting Baldwin repeatedly when he begins to speak. I wish she’d be quiet and listen to him.
Finally she does.
Such a great conversation
wow. meeting of the minds. don't think ANYTHING resolved here....but dammm....did they lay out the arguments....both from their own unique life perspectives. honest thinking...mostly unfiltered. rare.