I’m reading in my devotion time this morning. “Here,” Baldwin says, “to be loved”. He doesn’t say “there”. Sometimes I wonder if people only know how to love us “there” when we’re gone but fail to love us “here” while we’re alive. We want our children here and loved and alive.
Though Baldwin gave up the pulpit, he never gave up the sermon. His voice still carried God’s word and his pen, God’s power. He says this love is to “strengthen you.” And don’t we know what it means to be weak? And to feel but don’t feel? And to cry but can’t cry?
It shouted me because Baldwin is in effect saying though our love can’t protect us, our love can strengthen us. I’m reminded of Nehemiah’s word in the Hebrew Bible. “Be strong,” he said. He, like Baldwin, understood the world often fails at love but we can succeed at strength.
It is as if Baldwin is saying there is something within us and around us and that’s going on through us that will somehow keep one foot in front of the other even as other’s have their foots on our neck. There is something within us that keep us living when others fail at loving.
I refuse to let the hatred of white supremacy to steal from me what makes me human. Kevin Quashie is right: “Antiblackness is total in the world, but it is not total in the black world.” They may not want to love us and see us live but we do. We know resistance, rest, and life.
I believe with everything within me: The glory of God is Black people alive.
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