Baldwin rejected both racial shame and idealized black identity

Evidence

Baldwin’s rejection of negritude grew out of his understanding that the answer to the value gap was not to retreat into the safety of an idealized black world—to “flip the script,” so to speak, and make all that is black worthwhile. Ultimately, we would not find comfort in an easy identity secured from the vagaries of history that determines who we are, or an identity that denies how indelibly shaped we are by the places we sometimes reluctantly call home. Instead, the answer lay in fully accepting, in all of its complexity, who we are. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 316

Categorization

• DEFINE: The core of Baldwin’s anti-negritude position: no retreat into idealized identity, only messy acceptance of who we are.