1991_12 The Daily Collegian December 1991

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The Daily Collegian • December 4, 1991
Gates: Cultural intertwining allows for empowerment
Continued from page 1
and move to France.
"For all thdr misgivings, they
were happy to be part of the win¬
ning side.*
In florid language with poetic
prose, Gates described the setting
of the "rosey pinks and dusty
browns in acres of peach and
almond orchards.
"It was close to paradise for me.
Asl sat there I thought, 1 am going
to feast at the welcome table. And
feast we did... and feast we did."
Gates, who has published two
books and has written nearly 100
articles, said he first met Baldwin
when he was 14, when he realized
African Americans write books too.
"James Baldwin was my own
personal oracle," Gates said. It was
in August of 1965 at an Episcopa¬
lian church camp in West Virginia.
Gates remembered the delivery.
man bringing the milk and food —
a copy of the newspaper describ¬
ing race riots in Los .Angeles.
Apparently, "colored people"
had gone crazy in Los Angeles and
were rioting in Watts. "I was
bewildered, I didn't know what a
race riot was.
"Were white people killing
blacks or were blacks beating up
on whites?" v
Powerful and powerless
Gates explained the feeling of
power and powerlessness which
engulfed him at that moment. He
was one of only three black chil¬
dren in a sea of hundreds of white
faces.
"It's strange to feel responsible
for someone just because we were
bom Mack," Gates said.
Ami that's the day he first met
Baldwin in his book "Notes of a
Native Son." Baldwin's wide-eyed
face peered on the cover with
closely cropped natural, wide lips,
sprayed nostrels and dark, dark
skin.
"He looked so comfortable to
be black," Gates said.
Intertwined but separate
Gates explained that Baldwin
believed African A merican culru re
had a texture and life of its own —
separate from white culture.
"But white and black America
Roses are
red,
Violets are
blue,
Aluminum is
recylable,
And so is
The Daily
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are forever intertwined," Gates
quoted Baldwin.
Baldwin stated that America
had not only created a new Afri¬
can American man. but had also
created a new white man.
The African-American voice
Soon Baldwin was not only
Gates' personal oracle, he was the
African-American voice.
"Baldwin was not a political
spokesman, it was assigned to him
willy nilly; and it was a big mis¬
take."
After the rise of the Black Pan¬
thers and their presidential candi¬
date Eldridge Cleaver, Baldwin
was retired to an elder statesman.
Gates said he never recovered.
"My editors questioned why I
had chosen to speak with those
two ex-patriots," he said. "Jo¬
sephine Baker was a period piece
of the 1920s and quaint while James
Baldwin was passe, having been
surpassed by the Blac k Panthers."
Gates said they wan ted him to
interview a patriot like Cleaver,
someone in the forefront. The voice
that had replaced Baldwin's.   -
"A new generation was deter¬
mined to define itself by all that
Baldwin was not," Gates said.
"Baldwin states, 'Our destinies are
in our hands, black hands, and no
one else's."
But Baldwin had been disillu¬
sioned in his life.
"He didn't know what he
wanted to do or what we wanted
from him. And a new generation
came in that didn't want anything
from him."
'One nigger syndrome'
Gates said he was tired of the
"one nigger syndrome" where one
has to kill one leader to make room
for another.
"We no more think alike then
we look alike; we don't have one
voice."
Gates said there are 35 million
African American people in the
world and a multiplicity of voices,
and a wide variety of ideologies
needs to be accepted.
"We need to tolerate multiplic¬
ity before we get anywhere in this
world."
And, Gates said, the finest an¬
tagonists have welcomed Baldwin
back into the fold.
"Death makes everyone a hero,"
he said.
As Baldwin wrote, "Each life
moves full circle to a revelation."
When Gates again returned to
France, four years after Baldwin's
death, he again went to that little
Mediterranean town that had
grownup.
He visited Baldwin's brother
and spoke of the first time he had
met the writer in that very place.
"And David (Baldwin)
emerged with a manuscript, threw
it at me and said, This is for you.'"
It was the last play Baldwin
wrote before he died.
"*The setting was a little town on
the Riviera. And the characters
were an actress-singer star, a news
broadcaster and correspondent,
and an African American journal- s
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