James Baldwin: We've got to figure out some way to get everybody else a job.
And we're not going to be able to do it, the way we're doing it now.
That's a fact, I'm sorry.
And as for freedom.
I'll tell you what I know about freedom.
And I know people do not agree with this, and they think I don't have any political sense.
But I know that James Forman, for example, and Chico, for example,
are much, much freer
than most of the white people I know in this country.
For that matter, I am too.
The reason is, I think the reason is,
that in order to be free, lets look at some facts, the facts of your life very hard, an offense
then to look, into you, and know who you are.
At least know who you're not.
And decide what you want, at least what you, will not, have
and take it from there.
People are as free, I find to say, as they wish to become.
If one thinks of Americans in this way,
it begins to be a very sinister matter.
The way the word freedom is used here.
Freedom is used here mainly as far as I can tell as a synonym for conflict.
People seem to think they are free, because, they don't have a military machine oppressing them.
And they overlook the fact, that there are many, many ways to lose your freedom
and one of the simplest ways to lose it, is not through, not by military means, the simplest way to lose is to stop fighting for it.
To stop believing in it. To stop respecting it.
That is the way freedom goes and when it goes that way