James Baldwin.

One of the most insightful and talented thinkers and writers ever. The graphic below might offer you some understanding of why I make that statement.

The part of this quote, where ignorance and power are referenced and that an alliance of those two phenomena present the greatest obstacle to justice is scary true.

I'll add that we who are afflicted with whiteness (along with everyone in this society) are carefully and incessantly taught to be ignorant (but to be oblivious to that not knowing) and all the while thinking we are well informed. We all are subjected to this sort of demeaning flimflam but...those who belong to oppressed groups also are slammed with experiences that counter such social propaganda.

I have a book that contains a collection of his essays and it is just excellent. It's titled: The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings and it contains some excellent work....and his other writings are superlative too.

Notice how Mr. Baldwin is expressing (albeit in much more lyrical and powerful form) what Ruth Frankenberg has condensed into one the axioms she formulated as tools to assist in analyzing information.

Axiom Three: Those who are being harmed and/or oppressed by a system of domination are going to have the best location for detecting, apprehending and comprehending those domination activities. In other words, those who are being hurt by domination/oppression are going have the most comprehensive viewpoint. If you want to know what is going on...listen to the victims of oppression...they know more than you.

I love it when I run across things like this. If you haven't read James Baldwin...do so.