What Would James Baldwin Do (Say, Write)?
My future son-in-law is black. My daughter is white. And we live in the South where, despite their (possibly naive) idealism, interracial relationships still matter, often in negative ways.
I have been deeply concerned about race, class, and literacy for my 30-year career as a teacher, writer, and scholar, but I must confess that their relationship increases the poignancy of those issues for me because on the day the Trayvon Martin murder became the focus of the media, my future son-in-law left my house in a hoodie covering his dreadlocks. It was nighttime, and I wrestled with telling him to be careful in a way that had nothing to do with the perfunctory “be careful” people often use to say good-bye.
Their relationship has also colored my watching the documentary The Loving Story, and purchasing Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World: Rethinking Race, Sex, and Marriage.
Over the past couple of years, as well, I have been exploring the work of James