Never Aired (..gee, wonder why?): Profile on James Baldwin (1979)

 

Never Aired: Profile on James Baldwin ABC’s 20/20, 1979 from A Closer Look on Vimeo.

When James uttered the following in this interview, I wasn't surprised by his rare honesty & unvarnished truth & boldness of his words in front of the camera . I understood why ABC buried it as is customary across the board to bury any kind of truth-telling that makes America/White people look monstrous :

“White people go around, it seems to me, with a very carefully suppressed terror of Black people—a tremendous uneasiness,” Baldwin said. “They don’t know what the Black face hides. They’re sure it’s hiding something. What it’s hiding is American history. What it’s hiding is what white people know they have done, and what they like doing. White people know very well one thing; it’s the only thing they have to know. They know this; everything else, they’ll say, is a lie. They know they would not like to be Black here. They know that, and they’re telling me lies. They’re telling me and my children nothing but lies.”