Hidden Laws of the Time of Ferguson

Every society is really governed by hidden laws, by unspoken but profound assumptions on the part of the people, and ours is no exception. It is up to the American writer to find out what these laws and assumptions are. In a society much given to smashing taboos without thereby managing to be liberated from them, it will be no easy matter.

— James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

I begin with James Baldwin, as does Professor Fred O. Smith, Jr. in his innovative and important article, Abstention in the Time of Ferguson. Smith quotes Baldwin to introduce the concept of economic victimization but never exactly explains how readers should interpret his reference to Baldwin, nor his references to A Raisin in the Sun or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Contemporary black writers and scholars perpetually rely on Baldwin not because his words remain persuasive and relevant to current social conditions — though they do — but because of what Baldwin represents: a stunningly free black truth-teller, unafraid to express himself, directly and damningly, about the American racial hierarchy. When Baldwin writes about poverty, he is also writing about race. When Baldwin writes of the “hidden laws” structuring American society, one can surmise that white supremacy is one of them.

We who invoke Baldwin are reminding ourselves and signaling to others that we are not naïve. Pulitzer Prize–winning essayist Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah explains as much in a recent piece, part of the Baldwin-referent anthology The Fire This Time:

And this is how his memory is carried. On the scent of wild lavender like the kind in his yard, in the mouths of a new generation that once again feels compelled to march in the streets of Harlem, Ferguson, and Baltimore. What Baldwin knew is that he left no heirs, he left spares, and that is why we carry him with us.

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