Such a Thing as Grace
What does it take to survive as a Black person in a predominantly white world?John Metta shares the answer in this letter to his niece, Jayla, inspired by James Baldwin’s “Letter to My Nephew”
What does it take to survive as a Black person in a predominantly white world?John Metta shares the answer in this letter to his niece, Jayla, inspired by James Baldwin’s “Letter to My Nephew”
In the way that snow blunts, distorts, and renders the physical landscape softer to the eyes, even as it makes the environment inhospitable to survival, so whiteness covers over its own violence, insisting the world it creates is beautiful, and benign
James Baldwin was under no illusion about America. He saw the good and the evil. The answer doesn’t lie in fixing Black people. Baldwin knew this when he told his nephew, “We cannot be free until they are free."
James Baldwin, one of America’s foremost authors, activists, and playwright, is the muse of the latest issue of OHF Magazine