Shame

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  It wouldn’t surprise me if on some very old branches of my paternal family tree there were ancestors who had also experienced abandonment and neglect. Living in these conditions creates a whole bunch of behavioral issues: codependency; fear of being left; insecurity and low selfworth; difficulty saying no and trouble self-regulating, especially big feelings like—you guessed it—anger. As a result, it can be hard to form healthy relationships, because it’s difficult to trust others and even yourself. It’s my fault. There must be something wrong with me. I’m bad. These are common beliefs buried in the shameful wounds of trauma. For me, abandonment played out in countless familiar ways. As an adult, I often chose romantic partners who were emotionally cut off, were unaffectionate, or had a difficult time seeing me. I constantly made negative assumptions about what others thought of me (mirroring what I thought of myself). When my discomfort felt too big to cope with, I swiftly cut people out of my life, amputation style. And like many of us, I also self-abandoned. Not long after I was diagnosed with cancer in my early 30s, BD visited me. We’d stayed in touch over the years—a visit here, a dinner there—but we struggled to form a solid relationship. After a few pleasantries, I learned why he had come in the first place. “You need to get your affairs in order. You also need to figure out who’s going to pull the plug if it comes to that.” I was stunned. We hadn’t created the kind of relationship that allowed for deeply personal and difficult talks like this, one that took an incredible amount of trust and tenderness—not to mention sensitivity. Maybe in his own awkward way he was only trying to be helpful. But it still hurt. “Pull the plug”? Who says that? After his attempt at fatherly advice, he got up to leave. This visit lasted all of an hour. “Right-oh,” he said, nodding my way as he stood at the door. And with that, he was gone. I sat there frozen, not knowing how to process what had just happened. BD and I had barely talked about the basics, like where he was for most of my life or why he’d refused to acknowledge me. When we did connect, he preferred light banter. Throughout my 20s, the pain stacked up, and no matter how many drugs, cocktails, or boys I devoured, I couldn’t numb the truth: I wasn’t wanted. His disconnected tone about DNRs and end-of-life planning did nothing to dispel this feeling. Even with the parent who did want me, I sometimes felt like I was a burden. Growing up, I watched my mom work herself to the bone to make ends meet. Despite her efforts to hide her stress and show me love, the weight of caring for me and her two aging parents wrung her out.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  James Baldwin 12 ocean would not have been deep enough to drown our shame and terror. But the girls, no doubt, had some Intimation of this, possibly from the way we whistled, and they ignored us. As the sun was setting we started up the boardwalk towards his house, with our wet bathing trunks on under our trousers. And I think it began in the shower. I know that I felt something— as we were horsing around in that small, steamy room, stinging each other with wet towels—which I had not felt before, which mysteriously, and yet aim- lessly, included him. I remember in myself a heavy reluctance to get dressed: I blamed it on the heat. But we did get dressed, sort of, and we ate cold things out of his icebox and drank a lot of beer. We must have gone to the movies. I can't think of any other reason for our going out and I remember walking down the dark, tropical Brooklyn streets with heat coming up from the pavements and banging from the walls of houses with enough force to kill a man, with all the world's grownups, it seemed, sitting shrill and dishevelled on the stoops and all the world's children on the side- walks or in the gutters or hanging from fire escapes, with my arm around Joey's shoul- der. I was proud, I think, because his head came just below my ear. We were walking along and Joey was maldng dirty wisecracks and we were laughing. Odd to remember, for the first time in so long, how good I felt that night, how fond of Joey. CIOVANNrS ROOM 13 When we came back along those streets it was quiet; we were quiet too. We were very quiet in the apartment and sleepily got un- dressed in Joey's bedroom and went to bed. I fell asleep—for quite a while, I think. But I woke up to find the light on and Joey examin- ing the pillow with great, ferocious care,

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  132 James Baldwin comer of a kitchen. 'Makeyourself comfort- able/ she shouted outto me.Take off your shoes. Take off your socks. Look atmy books — I often wonder what I'd doif there weren'tany books in the world.' I took oflfmy shoes andlay back onher sofa. I tried not to think. ButIwas thinking that whatI did with Giovanni couldnot possibly be more immoral than what Iwasabout todowith Sue. Shecame backwithtwo greatbrandysnift- ers. She came closeto me onthe sofaand we touched glasses. We drank alittle,she watchingmeall thewhile, andthen Itouched her breasts. Her lips partedandshe put her glass down with extraordinary clumsinessand lay against me.It was a gestureofgreatdespair and I knewthat shewas giving herself,not to me, but tothat lover who wouldnevercome. AndI—I thoughtof many things,lyingcou- pled withSuein that dark place. I wondered if she had done anything to prevent herself from becoming pregnant; and the thoughtof a childbelonging to Sue and me,of my being trapped thatway —in the very act, soto speak, of trying to escape — almost precipitateda laughingjag. I wondered if her blue jeans had beenthrown on top of the cigarette she had been smoking.I wondered if anyone else had a key to her apartment, if we could be heard throughthe inadequate walls, how much, in a few moments,we would hate each other. I also GIOVANNrS ROOM 133 approached Sue as though she werea jobof work, a job which it was necessary to do inan unforgettable manner. Somewhere, at the very bottom of myself, I realized that Iwas doing something awful to her and it becamea matter of my honor not to let this fact become too obvious. I tried to convey, through this grisly act of love, the intelligence, at least, that itwas not her,not herflesh, that I despised—it would notbe her I could not face when we became vertical again. Again, somewhere at the bottom of me,I realized thatmy fears had been ex- cessiveand groundless and, in ejffect,a lie:it became clearer every instant that whatI had beenafraidof hadnothing to do with my body. SuewasnotHella and she did not lessen my terrorof whatwould happen when Hella came: she increased it,she made it morereal thanit had beenbefore. At thesame time,I realized that myperformance withSue was succeeding even too well,andI triednotto despise her for feeling soUttle what her laborerfelt.I travelled through a networkofSue's cries, ofSue's tom- tom fistson my back,and judged by meansof herthighs,bymeansofherlegs,howsoon I couldbefree.Then I thought, Theend is com- ing soon, hersobsbecame evenhigher and harsher, I was terriblyawareof the small ofmy back andthe coldsweat there,Ithought. Well, lether haveit for Christ sake,get itover with; then it was ending and Ihated her and me, then it wasover,and the dark, tinyroom rushed

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  When my daughter was a baby I read somewhere that, while labeling their infants’ body parts (“here’s your nose,” “here are your toes”), parents typically include a boy’s genitals (at the very least, “here’s your pee-pee”) but not a girl’s. Leaving something unnamed makes it quite literally unspeakable: a void, an absence, a taboo. Nor does that silence change much as girls get older. Adolescent penises insist on recognition. Enter any high school and you’ll see them scrawled everywhere: on lockers, on notebooks, on desks, on clipboards. Boys cannot seem to restrain themselves from drawing their sexual organs, loud and proud, on any blank surface. But whither the bushy vulva, the magnificent minge, the triangular twat? Did I hear an “eww”? Exactly. Even the most comprehensive sex education classes stick with a woman’s internal parts—uteri, tubes, ovaries. Those classic diagrams of a woman’s reproductive system, the ones shaped like the head of a steer, blur into a gray Y between the legs, as if the vulva and the labia, let alone the clitoris, don’t exist. Imagine not clueing a twelve-year-old boy into the existence of his penis! And whereas males’ puberty is characterized by ejaculation, masturbation, and the emergence of a near-unstoppable sex drive, females’ is defined by . . . periods. And the possibility of unwanted pregnancy. Where is the discussion of girls’ sexual development? When do we talk to girls about desire and pleasure? When do we explain the miraculous nuances of their anatomy? When do we address exploration, self-knowledge? No wonder boys’ physical needs seem inevitable to teens while girls’ are, at best, optional.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  At the beginning of every interview I conducted, I asked which pronoun—or combination of pronouns—to use when referring to a girl’s sexual partners. Many identified unambiguously as straight or gay, others as bisexual or bi-curious. Several times an interview itself became a place to explore incipient feelings. Lizzy, for instance, a soft-spoken eighteen-year-old in the first month of her freshman year at a mid-Atlantic college, fidgeted and blushed through much of our discussion, staring at the floor or past my shoulder as she spoke. A miasma of low-grade depression seemed to hover around her, and she was so unresponsive that I began to wonder why she had volunteered to talk to me at all. She told me she had been the type of girl who was excluded and bullied in high school, called “bitch” and “fat” by the “athletic-pretty-smart ‘whole package’ girls that boys generally like.” Still, she did have a boyfriend during her junior year, a fellow clarinetist in the school orchestra named Will. “I never really felt sexual desire for him, though,” she said. “It was more like he was my best friend. We would hang out, watch TV, go to the movies. Sometimes we’d kiss a little bit, but not full-on making out.” I asked her what those sessions felt like. She shrugged. “Nice, I guess. It wasn’t really my thing. To be honest, I don’t really understand what’s so great about it.” After about four months, Will began to push her to go further—much further—via increasingly insistent texts: “We should totally have sex!” he wrote, and “Come on! It will be fun! It will be great!” and “Why not? I don’t understand!” “I told him he was making me uncomfortable,” Lizzy said. “We’d never even done anything below the neck! But he would just keep bringing it up, texting me over and over.” Although Lizzy didn’t think she should have to justify a disinterest in intercourse with a boy she’d barely kissed, one who demonstrably had no respect for her limits and whose conversational skills did not extend past the keyboard, she nonetheless tried. Maybe, she said, her reluctance stemmed from shame over her body. “You see a lot of models and superstars, and they’re so skinny and gorgeous,” she said, looking down at her soft belly. “Even shopping for clothes—clothes are cut for people who are skinny, and I’m just not skinny.” Then she shook her head. “But really, I wasn’t attracted to him enough to even want to try. It was just, ‘Oh, no! He wants to have sex and I don’t.’” After two months of fending him off, she suggested they “take a break.” Will, her supposed “best friend,” never spoke to her again.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  Though it was obvious the odds were against them, the bettors had two things in their favor: the wagers were very small, and the ongoing “glory be” hope of receiving a sudden stroke of great good fortune relieved some measure of their lifelong, poverty-induced despair. I knew firsthand about this daily anticipatory excitement inherent in betting on the numbers because I occasionally, and secretly, placed a small bet myself (despite my parents’ admonitions), often with nickels or dimes I filched from the store cash register. (This recall of my petty theft makes me, even now, cringe with shame.) My father repeatedly pointed out that only fools would bet against such big odds. I knew he was right, but, until I got older, it was the only game in town. I made the bets through William, one of the two black men working in the store. I always promised him 25 percent of my winnings. William was an alcoholic and a lively, charming man, though not a paragon of integrity, and I never knew whether he truly placed my bets or simply pocketed my dimes or booked the bet himself. I never hit the number, and I suspect that, if I had, William, most likely, would have begged off by saying the numbers runner had not come that day or some similar concocted story. I finally abandoned the enterprise when I had the great good fortune of discovering baseball betting pools, craps, pinochle, and, above all, poker.

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  Shepard, Forgiven: The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and the PTL Ministry (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989), 239. 37. For the “Bible school dropout,” see Preston, “Bakker Given 45 Years”; for the Bakkers’ extravagant lifestyle, see Elizabeth LeLand, “Jim and Tammy Bakker Lived Life of Luxuriant Excess,” Ocala Star- Banner, May 24, 1987; Richard N. Ostling, “Of God and Greed: Bakker and Falwell Trade Charges in Televangelism’s Unholy Row,” Time (June 8, 1987): 70–72, 74, esp. 72. On living in a trailer and later excesses, see Shepard, Forgiven, 35, 110, 133, 180, 201, 249, 264, 551. 38. On Jim Bakker’s use of his poor class background in his religious message, see Richard N. Ostling, “TV’s Unholy Row: A Sex-and-Money Scandal Tarnishes Electronic Evangelicalism,” Time (April 6, 1987): 60–64, 67, esp. 62. On prosperity theology, see “Jim Bakker,” in Randall Herbert Balmer, Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004), 50–52; and Axel R. Schafer, Countercultural Conservatives: American Evangelicalism from the Postwar Revival to the New Christian Right (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011), 125. On the “cheesy” nature of the Jim and Tammy show, see Brian Siang, “Jim & Tammy Faye’s Fall from Grace Is Perfectly Clear,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 8, 1987. 39. On Tammy’s drug addiction, see “Tammy Bakker Treated,” [New Orleans] Times-Picayune, 1986; and Ostling, “Of God and Greed,” 72. On sex scandals and Hahn revelations, see Associated Press story, “Playboy Interview with Jessica Hahn,” [Spartanburg, SC] Herald Journal, September 22, 1987; Horace Davis, “Hahn’s Story—In Hahn’s Words,” Lakeland [FL] Ledger, October 9, 1987; “Fletcher Says Bakker Bisexual,” Gadsden [AL] Times, December 5, 1988; “As He Faces Likely Indictment, New Sex Accusation: Bakker Says Christianity in Disarray,” Ellensburg [WA] Daily Record, December 5, 1988; “Bakker Defrocked by Assemblies of God,” Lodi [CA] News-Sentinel, May 7, 1987; Montgomery Brower, “Unholy Roller Coaster,” People, September 18, 1989, 98–99, 102–4, 106, esp. 104; Mary Zeiss Stange, “Jessica Hahn’s Strange Odyssey from PTL to Playboy,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 6, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 105–16, esp. 106; “The Jessica Hahn Story: Part 1,” Playboy, November 1987, 178–80; “The Jessica Hahn Story: Part 2,” Playboy, December 1987, 198; “Jessica: A New Life,” Playboy, September 1988, 158–62. 40. On sending out the appeals for money on the first of the month, see Montgomery, “Unholy Roller Coaster,” 106; Nicholas Von Hoffman, “White Trash Moves Front and Center,” Bangor Daily News, April 8, 1987. Hoffman’s editorial appeared alongside a cartoon of Satan meeting with his minions, holding a paper marked “T.V. Evangelicals.” Satan is saying, “Then it’s agreed. The hostile takeover will not be attempted. The enterprise in question being too sleazy for our consideration.” For the typical viewers of televangelist shows, see Barry R. Litman and Elizabeth Bain, “The Viewership of Religious Television Programming: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Televangelism,” Review of Religion 30, no.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  122 James Baldwin cameabreast and, as though hehad seen some all-revealing panicin my eyes, he gave me a look contemptuously lewdand knowing; just such a look as hemight have given, but a few hours ago,tothe desperately well-dressed nym- phomaniac ortrollop who was trying tomake himbelieveshe wasalady.And in another second, had ourcontact lasted, I was certain thattherewould eruptintospeech, outof all thatlight andbeauty, somebrutalvariation of Look,baby, Iknow you, Ifeltmy faceflame, I feltmy hearthardenandshake as I hurried pasthim,trying to look stonilybeyond him. He had caught me by surprise, forI had,some- how, not really beenthinking of himbut ofthe letter inmy pocket,ofHella and Giovanni. I got to the othersideofthe boulevard, not dar- ingtolookback,andIwondered what he had seen in me to elicitsuch instantaneous con- tempt.I was toooldto suppose thatit hadany- thingtodo with my walk,or theway I heldmy hands,ormy voice— which, anyway, he had not heard.Itwas something else andI would neversee it. I would never dare to see it. It would belike looking at the naked sun.But, hurrying, and not daring now to look at any- one, male or female, who passed me on the wide sidewalks, I knew that what the sailor had seen in my unguarded eyes was envy and desire: I had seen it often in Jacques' eyes and my reaction and the sailor's had been the same. But if I were still able to feel affection and if he GIOVANNI'S ROOM 123 had seen it in my eyes, it wouldnot have helped, for affection, for the boysIwas doomed to look at, was vastly more frightening thanlust. I walked farther thanI had intended,for I did not dare to stop while the sailormightstill be watching. Near the river, on ruedesPyra- mides, I sat down ata cafe table and opened Hella's letter. Mon cher,she began, Spainismyfavorite country mais ca n'empeche que Paris est toujoursma villepreferee, I longto beagain among all thosefoolish people, running for metrosand jumping off of busesand dodging motorcycles and having traffic jams andadmir- ingall that crazy statuary inall those absurd parks. I weep for the fishy ladies inthePlace de la Concorde,Spain is not likethatatall. Whatever elseSpain is,it is not frivolous. I think, really,thatI would stayin Spain for- ever — if I hadnever beentoParis. Spain isvery beautiful, stony and sunnyand lonely.But by and by yougettired of olive oil and fish and castanets and tambourines — or, anyway, Ido. I want to comehome, tocome home to Paris. It's funny, I'venever felt anyplace washome before. Nothing has happened to mehere — I suppose that pleases you, I confess itratherpleases me. The Spaniards are nice, but, of course,most of them are terribly poor, theones who aren't are impossible, Idon't like thetourists, mainly Eng- lish and American dipsomaniacs, paid, my dear.

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  Distraught commentators twisted the facts of the case, offering up an odd collection of rationales in order to exonerate the third president from charges of immorality. One, Sally was beautiful (and Monica was cheap). Two, Clinton was an adulterer (and Jefferson was a widower of long standing). Three, Jefferson was a brilliant man whose words elevated him above his bodily urges (and the merely glib Clinton was unable to rise above his unimpressive origins). To conflate the impulses of Jefferson and Clinton was a leveling that upright Americans should not countenance. 30 Another editor saw the Lewinsky episode differently. After Clinton survived the impeachment ordeal and emerged stronger and more popular, he looked for explanations. If hating Clinton was irrational, then so was loving him. It was the “Elvis principle,” the journalist concluded, that subliminal desire all Americans have for kings. JFK had Camelot; Reagan was Hollywood royalty; Clinton and Elvis (“the King” to his millions of fans) were “rags to riches” monarchs. The kind of kings Americans looked up to were men with a hard-to-explain sex appeal and a gentle hubris. The point was that a little white trashiness could be a blessing in disguise. In the appearance-driven world of modern American politics, arrogance of style carried weight, and repressed, suit-and-tie candidates such as Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis were not in the same league as Clinton. To exude that redneck chic—to have a little Bubba—was better than being a dull, invisible, cookie-cutter politician indistinguishable from the pack. 31 Figuring out Clinton remained a favorite pastime. In 1998, looking on with horror at the trumped-up presidential adultery scandal, the novelist Toni Morrison drew her own conclusions. The violation of privacy, the ransacking of the presidential office when he was “metaphorically seized and body searched” was for her the kind of treatment black men faced. No matter “how smart you are, how hard you work,” you will be “put in your place.” Clinton had overreached. He was “our first black president,” Morrison mused. The “tropes of blackness” were apparent in his upbringing in a single-parent and poor household, and in his working-class ways, his saxophone playing and love for junk food. This Clinton really was Elvis-like. He was not the redneck Elvis who still had devotees in the 1990s, but the “Hillbilly Cat” Elvis of the 1950s, the youth who transgressed the boundaries between black and white—something that was only possible to do in comfort among the lower ranks of southern society. 32 Clinton’s title of “first black president” was reaffirmed at the 2001 Congressional Black Caucus Dinner. When Barack Obama ran for president in 2007, Andrew Young, the Carter adviser who had been a friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said that Clinton was “every bit as black as Barack.” How strange was that: the son of a Kenyan was less black than a Bubba from Arkansas? Young was treating blackness as a cultural identity, and Obama’s childhood in Hawaii and Jakarta lacked Dixie roots.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  iO JamesBaldwin watch, no penalties attached— itwas this last factwhichwas our undoing,for nothing is more unbearable,onceone hasit,than freedom. I suppose this was whyI askedher tomarry me: to give myself somethingtobemoored to.Per- hapsthis was why,in Spain,she decided that she wanted tomarryme.Butpeoplecan't, un- happily,invent their mooringposts,their lovers and their friends,anymorethantheycan in- vent their parents.lifegivesthese and also takesthem awayandthegreatdifficulty is to say Yestolife. I wasthinking, whenItoldHellathatI had loved her, of thosedaysbefore anything awful, irrevocable, hadhappened to me, when anaffair was nothingmore than anaffair. Now, from this night, thiscomingmorning,nomatter how manybeds Ifindmyselfinbetweennowand my finalbed, Ishallneverbe able to have any moreofthoseboyish,zestfulaffairs — which are, really, whenonethinksof it, a kind of higher,or, anyway,more pretentious mastur- bation. People are too various to be treated so lightly. Iamtoovarioustobe trusted. If this were notsoIwouldnot be alone inthis house tonight.Hella would notbeon the high seas. And Giovanni wouldnot beabouttoperish, sometime betweenthis nightandthismorning, on the guillotine. I repent now — forall the goodit does—one particularlieamongthe many lies I've told. GIOVANNI'S ROOM 11 told, lived, andbelieved. Thisis thelie which I told to Giovannibut never succeeded in mak- ing him believe, thatI had never sleptwith a boy before.I had.Ihad decided that I never would again. Thereis something fantastic in the spectacleI now presentto myselfof having run so far,so hard,across the ocean even,only to find myseK broughtup shortonce more be- fore thebulldog in my own backyard— the yard, in the meantime,havinggrown smallerandthe bulldog bigger. I havenot thought of thatboy — Joey — for many years; but Isee himquite clearlytonight. It was severalyearsago. I was stillinmyteens, he wasaboutmy age,giveor take a year. He was a veryniceboy,too,very quickand dark, and always laughing.For a whilehewasmy best friend.Later,theidea that such a person couldhavebeen mybest friend was proof of some horrifying taintinme. SoIforgothim. But Isee him very well tonight. Itwasinthe summer,there was no school. His parentshadgone someplace for the week- endandIwas spending the weekendat his house,which was nearConeyIsland, in Brooklyn. WelivedinBrooklyn too,in those days,butin abetterneighborhood than Joey's. I think wehad been lyingaroundthe beach, swimming a little andwatching the near-naked girls pass,whistling at them andlaughing. Iam sure that if any ofthe girls we whistled at that day had shownany signs ofresponding, the

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  Case in point: in 1633, Winthrop presided over the trial of a man accused of robbery. Upon conviction, his estate was sold and used to repay his victims. He was then bound for three years of service, and his daughter, as added collateral, bound for fourteen. This was typical. The 1648 Laws and Liberties established two classes of an even lower order who could be divested of liberty: Indians captured in “just wars,” and “strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us.” The “strangers,” in this case, were indentured servants from outside the colony as well as imported African slaves. 44 For servants, seventeenth-century New Englanders relied most heavily on exploitable youth, male and female, ages ten to twenty-one. By law, single men and women were required to reside with families and submit to family government. Children were routinely “put out” to labor in the homes of neighbors and relatives. The 1642 Massachusetts General Court’s order for the proper education of children treated apprentice, servant, and child as if all were interchangeable. Parents and masters alike assumed responsibility to “breed & bring up children & apprentices in some honest Lawfull calling.” Family supervision policed those who might otherwise become “rude, stubborn & unruly.” 45 Monitoring the labor of one’s own offspring became the norm, as landed families retained control over the males well into adulthood. Young men could not leave the family estate, nor escape their father’s rule, without endangering their inheritance. So family members worked long hours, as did servants of various ranks. While the extended Puritan family functioned with less recurrence to acts of ruthlessness than the system adopted during the tobacco boom in Virginia, legal and cultural practices muddied the distinction between son and servant. 46 Thus the Puritan family was at no time the modern American nuclear family, or anything close. It was often composed of children of different parents, because one or another parent was likely to die young, making remarriage quite common. Winthrop fathered sixteen children with four different wives, the last of whom he married at age fifty-nine, two years before his death. Most households also contained child servants who were unrelated to the patriarch; during harvest season, hired servants were brought in as temporary workers, and poor children were purchased for longer terms as menial apprentices for domestic service or farm-work. The first slave cargo arrived in Boston in 1638. Winthrop, for his part, owned Indian slaves; his son purchased an African. 47 While servants were expected to be submissive, few actually were. Numerous court cases show masters complaining of their servants’ disobedience, accompanied by charges of idleness, theft, rudeness, rebelliousness, pride, and a proclivity for running away.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  GIOVANNI'S ROOM 77 it may notbe safe. You are afraid it may change you. Whatkind of friendship have you had?' I said nothing. 'Or forthat matter/ hecontinued, 'what kind of loveaffairs?' Iwassilentforsolongthathe teasedme, saying, 'Comeout, comeout, whereveryou areT AndIgrinned,feelingchilled. 'Love him,' said Jacques, with vehemence, love him andlet him love you.Doyou think anything elseunder heaven really matters?And how long, at the best,can it last? sinceyouare both menandstill have everywhere to go?Only five minutes,Iassure you, only five minutes, and mostofthat, helas!in the dark.And if you thinkof them as dirty, thenthey will be dirty — they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing,you will be despising yourfleshand his. But youcan makeyour time togetherany- thing but dirty;you can give each othersome- thing which will make bothof you better — for- ever —ifyou will notbe ashamed, if youwill only notplay it safe.'He paused, watching me, and then looked down to his cognac, Touplay it safe long enough,' he said, ina differenttone, 'and you'll endup trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever — like me.' And he finished his cognac, ringinghisglass slightly on the barto attract the attention of Madame Clothilde. Shecame at once, beaming; and inthatmo- 78 James Baldwin ment Guillaume daredto smileat the redhead. Mme, Clothilde poured Jacques a fresh cognac and looked questioningly at me, thebottle poised over my half full glass.I hesitated. *Et pourquoi pas?"sheasked, with a smile. So I finishedmy glassand shefilled it.Then, for the briefest of seconds,sheglancedat Guillaume; who cried, *Et le rouquin IdlWhat's the redhead drinking?' Mme. Clothildeturnedwiththeairofan actress about to deUver theseverely restrained last linesofan exhausting andmighty part. *On foffre, Pierre/shesaid, majestically. What will you have?' —holding slightly aloftmeanwhile the bottle containingthemostexpensivecognac in the house. *Je prendraiun petitcognac,' Pierremumbled aftera moment and, oddly enough,he blushed, which madehim, inthelight ofthe pale,just- rising sun, resemble a freshly fallenangel. Mme. ClothildefilledPierre's glass and,amid a beautifullyresolvingtension, asofslowly dimmingfights, replaced thebottle ontheshelf and walkedback tothecash register; offstage, in effect, into thewings, where she began to recoverherself by finishing the lastofthe champagne. She sighed andsipped and looked outwardcontentedlyintothe slowlyrising morn- ing. Guillaumehad murmured a *Je m'excuse un instanty Madame/ and now passed behind us onhis wayto the redhead. I smiled. Things myfather never told me/

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  Woodward, “‘John Paul the Great,’ by Peggy Noonan,” New York Times, December 18, 2005; Helen Eisenbach, “Looking for Mr. Right,” New York (September 1, 2004); and on Gergen and Noonan seeing Reagan as a beloved father figure who transcended his party, see Marcus, Happy Days, 83; and Peggy Noonan, What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era (New York: Random House, 1990), 127. 28. Maxwell, “Seen as ‘White Trash.’” 29. For the revival of the “Slick Willie” slur, see Jack Germond and Jules Witcover, “Clinton’s Deposition Reveals Reputation as ‘Slick Willie,’” Reading [PA] Eagle, March 12, 1998. William Rusher argued that Clinton was white trash, that with his “record of moral squalor and criminal misconduct, we must now add an essential tackiness straight out of the trailer parks of Arkansas”; see William Rusher, “White Trash in the White House,” Cherokee County [GA] Herald, February 7, 2001; Jack Hitt, “Isn’t It Romantic?,” Harper’s Magazine (November 1998): 17–20, esp. 17; “Second White House Response to Starr,” Washington Post, September 12, 1998. 30. See Marianne Means, “But Bill Clinton’s No Thomas Jefferson,” [Wilmington, NC] Star-News, November 7, 1998; Thomas J. Lucente Jr. “No Comparison for Clinton and Jefferson,” Lawrence Journal-World, November 20, 1998; Georgie Anne Geyer, “Clinton and Jefferson: An Odd Comparison,” Victoria Advocate, November 12, 1998. There was a cartoon accompanying Geyer’s article of Clinton calling Jefferson and telling him not to worry about the DNA evidence. “The People don’t give a damn!” Also see Andrew Burstein, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Nancy Isenberg, “Three Perspectives on America’s Jefferson Fixation,” Nation (November 30, 1998): 23–28. 31. Jeffery Jackson, “Understanding Clinton: The King Is Dead; Long Live the King,” Nevada Daily Mail, August 19, 1999. 32. See Toni Morrison, “The Talk of the Town,” New Yorker (October 5, 1998): 31–32, esp. 32. 33. Kathleen Parker, “Democratic Race Seems to Be Bill vs. Oprah,” The Item, December 1, 2007. Andrew Young also made the crude comment that Clinton had slept with more black women than Barack Obama. On Klein’s Primary Colors, see Eric Lott, “The First Boomer: Bill Clinton, George W., and Fictions of State,” Representations 84, no. 1 (November 2003): 100–122, esp. 101, 108, 111. 34. Frank Rich, “Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage,” New York Times, September 7, 2008; Erica Jong, “The Mary Poppins Syndrome,” Huffington Post, October 4, 2008; Eliza Jane Darling, “O Sister! Sarah Palin and the Parlous Politics of Poor White Trash,” Dialectical Anthropology 33, no. 1 (March 2009): 15–27, esp. 19, 21. On Wasilla as a redneck town, see Jill Clarke of the Associated Press, “Alaskan Views of Clinton Reflect Those in the Lower 48,” [Schenectady, NY] Daily Gazette, January 16, 1999. 35. Monica Davey, “Palin Daughter’s Pregnancy Interrupts G.O.P.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  GIOVANNI'SROOM 75 to that poor boy,yonder,who doesn't knowthat when he looks at youthe wayhe does, he is simply putting his head in the lion's mouth. Are you going to treatthem asyou've treated me?' Tom? What haveyou todowith all this? How haveI treated you?' Tou have been very unfair tome,' hesaid. Tou have beenverydishonest.* ThistimeI did sound sardonic. 1suppose you mean that I wouldhavebeen fair, Iwouldhave been honestif I had — if — ' 1 mean youcould havebeenfair tome by despisingmea littleless.' Tm sorry.ButIthink,sinceyoubring it up, that a lotofyourlife is despicable.' 1couldsaythesameaboutyours,*said Jacques. There are so many ways of beingdes- picableitquite makes one's headspin. But the way to be reallydespicableis tobe contemptu- ous of otherpeople'spain.Yououghttohave some apprehension that the man youseebefore youwas onceevenyounger than you are now and arrivedathis present wretchednessby imperceptible degrees.' There wassilencefor a moment, threatened, from a distance, bythat laugh of Giovanni's. Tellme,' I said at last. Is there really no otherwayforyou but this? To kneeldown for- ever before an army of boysforjust five dirty minutes inthedark?' Think,' said Jacques, 'ofthe menwho have kneeled before youwhileyouthought ofsome- 76 James Baldwin thing else and pretendedthat nothingwas hap- peningdown thereinthe dark between your legs/ I stared atthe ambercognac andat the wet rings on themetal.Deep below,trappedinthe metal, the outline of my own facelookedup- ward hopelesslyat me. Tou think,*hepersisted,*that my life is shameful becausemyencounters are. Andthey are. Butyou shouldask yourselfwhythey are/ 'Why arethey — shameful?' I askedhim. 'Because thereis no affectioninthem, and no joy.It's like puttinganelectric plug in a dead socket. Touch,butnocontact.All touch, but no contact andno light/ I askedhim:Why?' Thatyou mustask yourself/ hetold me,'and perhaps oneday, thismorning willnotbeashes in your mouth.' I looked overat Giovanni,who nowhadone arm aroundthe ruined-looking girl, whocould have oncebeenverybeautifulbutwhonever would benow. Jacques followedmylook.'Heisveryfond of you,' he said,'already.Butthisdoesn'tmake you happy or proud, as it should. Itmakes you frightened andashamed.Why?' 'I don't understandhim,' I said atlast.1 don't know what his friendship means; I don't know what hemeansbyfriendship.' Jacques laughed.Toudon't know what he means by friendship but you havethefeeling

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  30 James Baldwin to remain in that house withhim and Ellen. And I maneuvered my father so well that he actually began to believe that my finding a job andbeing on my own wasthe direct result of his advice and atribute to the wayhe had raised me. Once I was out of the house of course, it became much easier to deal with him and he never had any reason tofeel shut out of my life for Iwas always able, when talking about it, totellhim what he wished tohear. And we got onquite well, really, forthe vision I gave my father of my life was exactly thevision in which Imyself most desperately needed tobelieve. For Iam —or I was—one of those people whopride themselves ontheir willpower, on their abiUty tomake a decisionandcarry it through. This virtue,likemostvirtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed andthe masters of their des- tinycanonly continueto believe this by becom- ingspecialists in self-deception. Theirdecisions arenot really decisionsat all— a realdecision makes onehumble, one knows thatitisat the mercy of more things thancan be named—but elaborate systemsof evasion, of illusion, de- signed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. Thisis certainlywhat my decision, made solong ago in Joey's bed,came to.I had decided to allow no roomin the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well — by not looking at the universe, by not GIOVANNI'S ROOM 31 looking at myseK, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion. Even constant motion, of coiurse, does not preventon occasional mysteri- ous drag, a drop, likean airplane hitting an air pocket. And there werea number of those, all drunken, all sordid, one very frightening such drop whileI wasin the Army which involved a fairy who was later court-martialed out. The panic his punishment caused inme was as close as I ever cameto facing in myself the terrors I sometimes saw clouding another man's eyes. What happenedwas that, all unconsciousof what this ennui meant, I wearied of the motion, wearied of the joyless seas of alcohol, wearied of theblunt, bluff, hearty, andtotally meaning- less friendships, weariedof wandering through the forests of desperate women, wearied of the work,whichfed meonlyin the most brutally literalsense.Perhaps,aswe say in America,I wantedto findmyself.Thisisan interesting phase, not current asfarasIknow in thelan- guageofanyother people,which certainlydoes notmean what it says butbetrays a nagging sus- picion that something has been misplaced. I think nowthat if 1had had any intimation that theself I wasgoing tofind wouldturnouttobe onlythe same self from which I hadspentso much time in flight, Iwould have stayed at home. But, again, I think I knew, atthevery bottom ofmy heart, exactly what I was doing whenItookthe boat for France.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  But no matter what was happening in that room, my mother was watching it. She looked out of the photograph frame, a pale, blonde woman, dehcately put together, dark-eyed, and straight-browed, with a nervous, gentle mouth. But something about the way the eyes were set in the head and stared straight out, some- thing very faintly sardonic and knowing in the set of the moudi suggested that, somewhere beneath this tense fragility was a strength as various as it was unyielding and, like my father's wrath, dangerous because it was so entirely unexpected. My father rarely spoke of her and when he did he covered, by some mys- terious means, his face; he spoke of her only as my mother and, in fact, as he spoke of her, he might have been speaking of his own. Ellen spoke of my mother often, saying what a remarkable woman she had been, but she made GIOVANNI'S ROOM 21 me uncomfortable. I felt that I had no right to be the son of such a mother. Years later, when I had become a man, I tried to get my father to talk about my mother. But Ellen was dead, he was about to marry again. He spoke of my mother, then, as Ellen had spoken of her and he might, indeed, have been speaking of Ellen. They had a fight one night when I was about thirteen. They had a great many fights, of course; but perhaps I remember this one so clearly because it seemed to be about me. I was in bed upstairs, asleep. It was quite late. I was suddenly awakened by the sound of my father's footfalls on the walk beneath my window. I could tell by the sound and the rhythm that he was a little drunk and I remem- ber that at that moment a certain disappoint- ment, an unprecedented sorrow entered into me. I had seen him drunk many times and had never felt this way—on the contrary, my father sometimes had great charm when he was drunk—but that night I suddenly felt that there was something in it, in him, to be despised. I heard him come in. Then, at once, I heard Ellen's voice. 'Aren't you in bed yet?' my father asked. He was trying to be pleasant and trying to avoid a scene, but there was no cordiality in his voice, only strain and exasperation. T thought,' said Ellen, coldly, 'that someone ought to tell you what you're doing to your son.' — 22 James Baldwin What Tm doing to my son?' And he was about to say something more, something awful; but he caught himself and only said, with a resigned, drunken, despairing calm: 'What are you talking about, Ellen?' Do you really think/ she asked—I was cer- tain that she was standing in the center of the room, with her hands folded before her, stand-

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  GIOVANNI'S ROOM 57 into the air, perhapsto findHella,my suddenly so sorely menaced girl. There's been no confusion/I snapped. 'Don't you go getting confused, either/ 1 thinkI can safelysay,' said Jacques, 'that I have scarcely ever beenless confusedthan I am at this moment/ He had stopped smiUng; he gave mea look which was dry,bitter, andim- personal. 'And,at therisk of losing forever your so remarkably candid friendship,letme tellyou something. Confusionisa luxurywhichonlythe very, veryyoungcan possibly afford and you arenot that young anymore/ *I don't know whatyou're talkingabout/ I said. Xet's haveanother drink/ Ifelt thatI hadbetter get drunk. Now Giovanniwent behind the bar againandwinked at me. Jacques' eyesnever left my face.I turned rudely fromhim and faced the baragain. He followed me. The same/ said Jacques. 'Certainly/ said Giovanni, 'that'stheway to do it.' Hefixed our drinks. Jacques paid.I sup- pose Idid not look toowell,for Giovanni shouted at me playfully, 'Eh?Areyoudrunk already?' Ilooked up and smiled. Touknow how Americans drink/ I said. 'I haven't even started yet/ 'David is far from drunk/ said Jacques. 'Heis only reflecting bitterly that he must get anew pair of suspenders.' 58 James Baldwin I could havekilled Jacques.Yetit was only withdifficulty that Ikept myself from laughing. I made a face tosignify to Giovanni that the oldman wasmaking aprivate joke, and hedis- appeared again. That time ofevening had come whengreat batches ofpeople were leaving and great batches were coming in. They would all encounter each other later anyway, in the last bar,all those, that is,unlucky enough to be searching still at such an advanced hour. Icould not look at Jacques — which he knew. Hestood beside me,smiling atnothing, hum- ming atune. There was nothing Icould say. I did not dare tomention Hella.Icould not even pretend to myself that Iwas sorryshe wasin Spain. I was glad. Iwas utterly, hopelessly, horribly glad. Iknew I coulddonothingwhat- ever tostop the ferociousexcitementwhichhad burstin melike a storm. I couldonly drink, in the fainthope that the storm mightthusspend itself without doinganymore damageto my land.But Iwasglad.Iwas only sorrythat Jacques hadbeen a witness. He mademe ashamed.I hated him because hehadnowseen allthathe hadwaited, often scarcely hoping, so many months tosee. We had, in effect,been playinga deadlygameand hewas thewinner. He was thewinnerin spite of the factthat I had cheated towin. I wished, nevertheless, standing thereat the bar, thatIhadbeen ableto find inmyselfthe forceto turnandwalk out—to have gone over

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  16 James Baldwin have brokenmywill. I did not wait to have breakfastwith him but only drank some cofEee andmade anexcuse togo home. Iknew the excuse did not fool Joey; but hedid notknow how to protest or insist;hedid not know that this wasallhe needed tohavedone. ThenI, who had seen him that summernearly every day till then, no longerwentto seehim. He did notcometo seeme. I would have beenvery happy to seehim ifhe had,but the manner of my leave-taking had begun a constriction, which neitherofusknew how toarrest.When Ifinally did seehim,moreorlessby accident,near the end of thesummer,Imade up alongandtotally untrue story about a girlI was going withand when school began again I pickedup with a rougher, oldercrowdand was very nasty to Joey. Andthesadderthis madehim,the nastier I became. He moved awayat last, out ofthe neighborhood, away fromour school,and I never saw him again. I began, perhaps, to be lonelythatsummer and began,thatsummer,the flightwhich has broughtmeto thisdarkeningwindow. Andyet — when one beginsto search for the crucial, thedefinitivemoment, themoment whichchangedall others,one findsoneself pressing,ingreat pain,througha maze offalse signalsandabruptly locking doors. My flight may, indeed,have begun that summer — which does nottellmewhereto findthe germofthe dilemma whichresolved itself,that summer, into flight. Of course, it is somewhere before GIOVANNI'S ROOM " me, locked in that reflectionI am watching in the window as the night comes down outside. It is trapped in the room with me, always has been, and always will be, and it is yet more foreign to me than those foreign hills outside. We lived in Brooklyn then, asI say; we had also lived in San Francisco, where I was bom, and where my mother lies buried, andwe lived for awhile in Seattle, and then in New York — for me.New Yorkis Manhattan. Later on, then, we moved from Brooklyn back to New York andby the timeI cameto France my father and hisnew wife had graduatedto Connecticut. I had long beenonmy own by then, of course, andhad been living inan apartment in the eastsixties. We, in thedays when I was growing up, were my fatherandhis unmarried sister andmy- seK. Mymother had been carried to the grave- yard when I was five.I scarcely remember her at all, yetshefigured inmy nightmares, blind with worms, herhair as dry as metal and brittle as atwig, straining to pressme againsther body;that body soputrescent, so sickening soft, that itopened, as Iclawedand cried, into a breach soenormous as to swallowmealive.But when my father or my auntcame rushing into my room tofind out whathad frightenedme, I did not dare describe this dream, which seemed disloyal tomy mother. Isaid that Ihaddreamed about a graveyard. They concluded thatthe death ofmy mother had had this unsettling effect onmy imagination and perhaps they

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xxxiii. s. 4) They had remarked upon Him already, as being over lenient. Of Him indeed it had been prophesied, Ride on because of the word of truth, of meekness, and of righteousness. (Ps. 44) So as a teacher He exhibited truth, as a deliverer meekness, as a judge righteousness. When He spoke, His truth was acknowledged; when against His enemies He used no violence, His meekness was praised. So they raised the scandal on the score of justice. For they said among themselves, If He decide to let her go, He will not do justice; for the law cannot command what is unjust: Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but to maintain His meekness, which has made Him already so acceptable to the people, He must decide to let her go. Wherefore they demand His opinion: And what sayest Thou? hoping to find an occasion to accuse Him, as a transgressor of the law: And this they said tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But our Lord in His answer both maintained His justice, and departed not from meekness. Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground. AUGUSTINE. (de Con. Evang. lib. ii. c. 10) As if to signify that such persons were to be written in earth, not in heaven, where He told His disciples they should rejoice they were written. Or His bowing His head (to write on the ground), is an expression of humility; the writing on the ground signifying that His law was written on the earth which bore fruit, not on the barren stone, as before. ALCUIN. The ground denotes the human heart, which yieldeth the fruit either of good or of bad actions: the finger jointed and flexible, discretion. He instructs us then, when we see any faults in our neighbours, not immediately and rashly to condemn them, but after searching our own hearts to begin with, to examine them attentively with the finger of discretion. BEDE. His writing with His finger on the ground perhaps shewed, that it was He who had written the law on stone. So when they continued asking Him, He lifted Himself up. AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xxxiii. 5) He did not say, Stone her not, lest He should seem to speak contrary to the law. But God forbid that He should say, Stone her; for He came not to destroy that which He found, but to seek that which was lost. What then did He answer? He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. This is the voice of justice. Let the sinner be punished, but not by sinners; the law carried into effect, but not by transgressors of the law.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  On the morning following his arrival, I did everything I could to get out of the house for my morning hike without his knowing where I had gone. Breakfastless, with hysterical haste, I gathered my net, pill boxes, killing jar, and escaped through the window. Once in the forest, I was safe; but still I walked on, my calves quaking, my eyes full of scalding tears, the whole of me twitching with shame and self-disgust, as I visualized my poor friend, with his long pale face and black tie, moping in the hot garden—patting the panting dogs for want of something better to do, and trying hard to justify my absence to himself. Let me look at my demon objectively. With the exception of my parents, no one really understood my obsession, and it was many years before I met a fellow sufferer. One of the first things I learned was not to depend on others for the growth of my collection. One summer afternoon, in 1911, Mademoiselle came into my room, book in hand, started to say she wanted to show me how wittily Rousseau denounced zoology (in favor of botany), and by then was too far gone in the gravitational process of lowering her bulk into an armchair to be stopped by my howl of anguish: on that seat I had happened to leave a glass-lidded cabinet tray with long, lovely series of the Large White. Her first reaction was one of stung vanity: her weight, surely, could not be accused of damaging what in fact it had demolished; her second was to console me: Allons donc, ce ne sont que des papillons de potager!—which only made matters worse. A Sicilian pair recently purchased from Staudinger had been crushed and bruised. A huge Biarritz example was utterly mangled. Smashed, too, were some of my choicest local captures. Of these, an aberration resembling the Canarian race of the species might have been mended with a few drops of glue; but a precious gynandromorph, left side male, right side female, whose abdomen could not be traced and whose wings had come off, was lost forever: one might reattach the wings but one could not prove that all four belonged to that headless thorax on its bent pin. Next morning, with an air of great mystery, poor Mademoiselle set off for St. Petersburg and came back in the evening bringing me (“something better than your cabbage butterflies”) a banal Urania moth mounted on plaster. “How you hugged me, how you danced with joy!” she exclaimed ten years later in the course of inventing a brand-new past.