[News] James Baldwin Tells Us All How to Cool It This Summer

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/interviews/a23960/james-baldwin-cool-it/*

one small quote from the interview:

In July 1968, James Baldwin was asked:

Q. "How would you define somebody who smashes in the window of a 
television store and takes what he wants?"

BALDWIN: "Before I get to that, how would you define somebody who puts a 
cat where he is and takes all the money out of the ghetto where he makes 
it? Who is looting whom? Grabbing off the TV set? He doesn’t really want 
the TV set. He’s saying screw you. It’s just judgment, by the way, on 
the value of the TV set. He doesn’t want it. He wants to let you know 
he’s there. The question I’m trying to raise is a very serious question. 
The mass media-television and all the major news agencies-endlessly use 
that word “looter”. On television you always see Black hands reaching 
in, you know. And so the American public concludes that these savages 
are trying to steal everything from us, And no one has seriously tried 
to get where the trouble is. After all, you’re accusing a captive 
population who has been robbed of everything of looting. I think it’s 
obscene."


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