King understood white supremacy as a distortion of democracy, as an interruption of the delivery of social goods. Thus, his “I Have a Dream” speech suggested that the American Dream was sufficient to accommodate the aspirations of black folk. The adjustment had to be made in society’s laws, customs, habits, traditions, and conventions. Baldwin believed the state was doing exactly what it was set up to do: undermine blackness. Thus, black animus was a condition of the state’s very existence.
