The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

by James Baldwin

these present days, to describe a person, or group of persons, as leftists, guerrillas, or terrorists is to dismiss their claim to human attention: we are not compelled to think of them at all anymore, except as the vermin that must be destroyed. Or, in another way, but for the same reason, we are still attempting to explain Hitler away: we do not wish to see him in our mirror. Or Franco: who could not have terrorized Spain so long without the support of the “free” world. Or Mobutu, a puppet of the West, one of the people directly responsible for the murder of Lumumba.