No one today comes close to Baldwin

Songdej Praditsmanont quoted the great American writer James Baldwin – and I sat with other graduate students in Baldwin’s apartment in 1979-1980 as he told us directly how he felt.

Songdej Praditsmanont said about the US, “criticism should not include damning her and nitpicking, and defaming her to gratify a personal grudge”. But that misses the entire point of being American – the fun of kicking at the shins of self-righteous US expats who would no doubt be calling for the assassination of any American who would dare say today what James Baldwin said in so many ways, so many decades ago.

Anyone wanting to conjure up the spirit of James Baldwin might be left sobbing in despair at the loss of insight and courage of Baldwin, replaced by cowardly droning propaganda of the most pedestrian kind.

No American today comes close to the stature of James Baldwin.

Guy Baker

Bangkok