We had to struggle against the terms the country imposed on us. And in that struggle for individuality, Baldwin saw the need to distance himself from the categories and fantasies that trapped all Americans: “If one is trying to become an individual in that most individual of countries, America, one’s really up against something,” he said. To try to think for oneself, and act for oneself, and have as little regard as I was forced to have for the architecture of my prison…to go into battle with all of that is to be very lonely. It’s a sort of exile, and if you’re lonely enough, you can perish
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