For my money, James Baldwin is this nation’s most poignant social critic. The famed writer was poignant, powerful, and disruptive in a nation that has always needed such prodding. Much of Baldwin’s power flowed from the realization that matters such as racial identity, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status were major determinants in how a person would be treated in America. From Baldwin’s perspective, American powerbrokers’ adherence to the Golden Rule of he who owns the gold makes the rules made his countrymen monster-men imprisoned within lives that were not worth living. James Baldwin detailed such individuals in the following commentary.

People pay for what they do, and still more so for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it very simply by the lives they lead.

Unfortunately for humanity’s sake, there appears to be no shortage of such fools.

One needs to look no further than the recent death of a 17-year-old teen in Lancaster, California from Covid-19 related complications. Although it is notable that he is the first minor to die during the pandemic, the circumstances of his death are not only shocking but also revealing. The absence of insurance, a yoke that is currently secured around the necks of millions of Americans, led health care providers to deny this teen desperately needed medical treatment. Where they could have aided, they denied treatment, a decision that guaranteed this youth would never reach his eighteenth birthday.

I have never been one to ask questions that I did not want the answers to, however, this tragic occasion forces me to divert from that well-worn pattern.

The question pricking my soul is the following.

Is this who we are as Americans? Do we have this little concern for our fellow country-men?

As you well know, the preponderance of the evidence points to an affirmative answer. This is exactly who so many Americans have become. If nothing else, Covid-19 has once again exposed a sizable population of Americans who are

• Greedy
• Inconsiderate of others
• Selfish
• Narcissistic
• Incapable of understanding that we are all inextricably linked together as countrymen

This is who many Americans have unfortunately become during their never-ending pursuit of politico-economic power and ascension up an invisible, yet very real, social ladder that promises fame and fortune for those who reach its highest rung, regardless of the methods they took to arrive there.

Even in the midst of the pandemic, many Americans have yet to realize that neither wealth nor political connections are capable of protecting oneself from Covid-19; if nothing else, this virus appears to be the great equalizer sent to remind all that we are inextricably linked together for eternity. The failure to recognize this reality dooms my countrymen in a host of ways that they do not understand. I guess that James Baldwin was correct in his assertion that

People pay for what they do, and still more so for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it very simply by the lives they lead.

It is frightening that this is who my countrymen have become.

Dr. James Thomas Jones III

© Manhood, Race, and Culture 2020.

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