Black self-determination threatens white standing and releases contaminating fears.

Evidence

“Backlash” fails to capture the response to the collapse of old hierarchies as people who were once relegated to the bottom rungs of society seek to move out of their designated spots. In critical moments of transition, when it seems as if old ways of living and established norms are fading, deep-seated fears emerge over loss of standing and privilege. Baldwin put it this way in the essay on Carmichael: “When a black man, whose destiny and identity have always been controlled by others, decides and states that he will control his own destiny and rejects the identity given to him by others, he is talking revolution.” That threat to the social order releases fears that further contaminate our politics. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 125

Categorization

• XREF: Baldwin’s Carmichael quote is the engine for the reader’s case that late Baldwin — the essay on Carmichael — belongs in the canon. — connects to: Racial self-sanctification operates as paranoid group self-defense against imagined impurities. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1386