Описание: This examination of James Baldwins essays explores his contribution to political theory.... The book concludes with a discussion of Baldwins complicated relation with language and a consideration of his significance in the political landscape of the 21st century.
? Journal of Social Work Education
The Evidence of Things Not Said employs the rich essays of James Baldwin to interrogate the politics of race in American democracy. Lawrie Balfour advances the political discussion of Baldwins work, and regards him as a powerful political thinker whose work deserves full consideration.
Baldwins essays challenge appeals to race-blindness and formal but empty guarantees of equality and freedom. They undermine white presumptions of racial innocence and simultaneously refute theories of persecution that define African Americans solely as innocent victims. Unsettling fixed categories, Baldwins essays construct a theory of race consciousness that captures the effects of racial identity in everyday experience.
Balfour persuasively reads Baldwins work alongside that of W. E. B. Du Bois to accentuate how double consciousness works differently on either side of the color line. She contends that the allusiveness and incompleteness of Baldwins essays sustains the tension between general claims about American racial history and the singularity of individual experiences.
The Evidence of Things Not Said establishes Baldwins contributions to democratic theory and situates him as an indispensable voice in contemporary debates about racial injustice.
