If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

I have read a few other works by Baldwin and have been moved and angered and saddened by his writing. Recently while at the movies I saw a trailer for the movie telling of this one and wanted to read it before the movie is released.


As expected, Baldwin is making an observation, commenting on society, and revealing something that needs exposing. And as has been the case with everything else I have read by him, it is still too relevant today.

The backbone of this story is Fonny's being arrested and stuck in jail for a crime he didn't commit with no end in sight. He has a run in with a white officer with a history of abuse of power but to no consequence to him. When Fonny and the officer, Bell, run into each other Bell comes away feeling humiliated and disrespected and you can see it coming, that this officer will get even. So when a White officer is the driving force behind an accusation against a Black man it doesn't matter if it is 1974 or 2018, it isn't hard to see who is going to get fucked in the situation.

Tish is the narrator, our tour guide, and the love she and Fonny have for each other is beautiful and pure even in the awful separation they face, each being able to see the other from their side of the glass divide in the jail visiting area, a phone the conduit of their words. They and their families paint a picture in words on the injustice and race based punishment faced by generation of people of color. Their love and pain and even joy keep them going even when things are at their worst. The criminal justice system is the adversary they must face to be together and it is clear to them they are David facing Goliath.


Wish is so strong and I loved her from page one. Fonny is a man in every sense of the word and he is admirable and honorable even when it is so hard to be, in a world that tells him he is less. When my fellow White people ask how they can be better allies I give them the advice I first got from reading The New Jim Crow, start by educating yourself, read everything you can, fiction and nonfiction, that will teach you about the experiences of Black people in America, and Baldwin should be all over the list of writings you read, this included. And through all the self-education you do, always acknowledge the privilege you have just because of the luck of the draw that had you born in the skin you are in.



(Finished December 3, 2018)