No Name in the Street

Baldwin’s social criticism regarding America’s racial crisis hinges on the argument that Western civilization is in decline. Because mainstream American society reflects Western values at large, the American social crisis in the 1960s and 1970s signified a wider crisis. For Baldwin, the West is characterized by the delusion of white supremacy, the dominance of the white male, and the subjugation of non-Western nations. Thus, white Americans reserve the right to claim American identity, excluding non-white racial groups. Baldwin’s reference to the Algerian War and the Algerian immigrants demonstrates the wider problems of Western culture after the fall of empires and the colonies’ claims to independence. Like France, which was invested in the myth of empire, America operates in a colonial mindset that upholds white superiority and the oppression of others. Baldwin notes that “the loss of an empire also implies a radical revision of the individual identity” (25), which white people resist. For Baldwin, Western nations are doomed by “the lie of their pretended humanism” (85). Because Western power relies on the exploitation of other peoples, its crisis and demise is a “global problem.”

Baldwin notes that despite white people’s investment in the mythologies of white superiority, Western power can no longer justify itself.