James Baldwin is a universal treasure. His presence and contribution to society is unmatched and shall never be forgotten. 

If you know anything about Baldwin, his M.O. was tearing down racial, sexual and class discriminations in a manner that perfectly balanced the cutting and the classy.

There was no clapback like a Baldwin clapback, and he snipped his opponents and detractors with the kind of grace that could never be duplicated. 

Photo: GIPHY

So, on this day, August 2 — his birthday — we want to pay appropriate homage to one of the greatest human beings to ever honor us with his aura.

When it comes to Baldwin, there are a myriad of moments to highlight. Ask me how I was able to narrow this list down to eight things, and I'll tell you that the list is still changing in my head as you read. Regardless, here's eight to start you off! 

1. The Dick Cavett Show – "An idealism that exists in America, which I have never seen." 


This video is likely one of the most-watched videos featuring Baldwin, and for good reason! In response to anyone who denies racism's existence with "I don't hate black people!" statements, Baldwin deftly eliminated the relevance of how anyone "feels" about race by citing the receipts of the very institutions that roundly contradict the idea of American equality. 

2. "To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time." 

This quote is one of my favorite statements of all time.

Sadly, this statement is just as true today as it was the day Baldwin said it. In a society overwhelmed by hate crimes, police brutality and endless micro-aggressions, the built up trauma from having to endure all that while trying to maintain a modicum of sanity is very real.  

Photo: GIPHY

3. The molding of queerness with blackness.

With works such as Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room, Baldwin's openness in discussing black boys' sexual development and their relationships with masculinity was a significant in a time when the majority of civil rights activists distanced themselves from homosexuality. Boldly, Baldwin wasn't about that life.

Similar to today's fight for the inclusion of black people within intersectionality, Baldwin seemed to believe that you're either for all black people or you're for none of them. And speaking of civil rights … 

4. A citizen shouldn't have to fight for civil rights.


Baldwin never officially affiliated himself with the civil rights movement, calling it "the latest slave rebellion" in a U.C. Berkeley lecture circa 1979. He quoted Malcolm X noting, "if you have to fight for your civil rights, then you're not a citizen," and asserted that we as black people are still living under "slave codes."

That's an idea that is still relevant now. Prison industrial complex, anyone? 

Photo: GIPHY

5. "Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor."

We've already tackled racial and sexual intolerance, let's round out the holy bigot trinity with classism, which Baldwin also chastised.

I'm a proponent of the "There's a Baldwin quote for everything" school of thought.

America's unwritten path toward the American dream is to "pull oneself up by the bootstraps."

Baldwin knew things weren't so simple as that. To pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you must first be able to afford boots. And you can only begin to think about buying those after you've put a roof over your head and bread on the table, and paid the cost of a hundred other things the financially stable take for granted.

As Baldwin said, "Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor."

6. Calling out the fetishization of violence against black bodies. 

Verso Books recently featured a letter Baldwin wrote to Angela Davis, published in If They Come in the Morning, a collection of essays edited by Davis.

The letter opens with a stark passage that eerily mirrors the sea of dead/maimed black bodies seen across social media today: "One might have hoped that, by this hour, the very sight of chains on black flesh, or the very sight of chains, would be so intolerable a sight for the American people, and so unbearable a memory, that they would themselves spontaneously rise up and strike off the manacles. But, no, they appear to glory in their chains; now, more than ever, they appear to measure their safety in chains and corpses," he wrote.

7. "The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated."

Mic drop moment!

Raise your hand if you grew up reading history books in school — especially sections of black history — and once you got older, you realized that your textbooks had a lot missing, causing you to side-eye the very education that molded you in your younger years.

Education is likely one of the primary components of power; snatching slaves' ability to read and communicate was not by accident, but by design. School is a system much like any other, so it behooves the student not to narrow their education source. Baldwin got it, way back then. 

8."I am not a nigger; I am a man." 


In a KQED clip that appeared in the Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro, Baldwin dropped the hammer on the word "nigger" and turned it head-on against the very system that created it.

He mused, "Nigger … whatever it is that you fear, is not me … you invented it."

Bloop!

James Baldwin may not be walking the soils of Earth any longer, but his spirit and essence will live on forever. We already have this proof with the next generation celebrating him on his day:

And for that, I am glad. Happy Birthday, Mr. Baldwin. We will always wear that crown for you.

Photo: GIPHY