Baldwin’s earlier attack on Wright echoed into Cleaver’s attack on Baldwin.

Evidence

And just as Cleaver now called out Baldwin for “hatred of the blacks,” nearly two decades earlier Baldwin had accused Wright of the same thing, connecting Native Son with Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and accusing Wright of failing to represent fully the complexity of black life. Ironically, Cleaver would hold Baldwin to account for his criticism of Wright. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 312

Categorization

• XREF: Generational recycling of the same accusation across Black letters — a concrete mechanism for the reader’s ‘failed reckoning’ framing.