Tranquility Amidst Oppression

Exploring vulnerability is the essence of literature for artists like James Baldwin who pushed the boundaries of human emotion by taking the realities of black American life and placing it at the center of his work.

His use of storytelling didn’t neglect imagination. Instead, he used it to create stories that are authentic recounts of black life in America.

Most notably, we see his marriage of reality and imagination (in the form of hope) in If Beale Street Could Talk. The harsh realities of racism and an unfair justice system that disproportionately affects black and brown bodies is framed around a love story, told from the point of view of Tish, a 19-year old black mother to be.

Baldwin uses Beale Street as a conduit for black Americans to stare in the face of helplessness with hope, challenging the narrative that black love is subject to ruin under racism and systemic oppression and that the black experience is destined to be lived void of hope.

Considering this, we’re left with two important questions:

• Is there true tranquility for Black readers engaging with works like Beale Street, where the realities of Black life is authentically and unapologetically explored?
• Does Beale Street generate the idea of Black love as a revolution amidst oppression to remedy the harshness of the black experience?

DOES TRANQUILITY FOR BLACK READERS EXIST?

Thinking about tranquility for black readers and texts like Beale Street, we encounter themes and issues such as institutional racism, poverty, violence. More specific to black American literature, we see intra-racial issues such as misogyny, toxic black masculinity and the theme of black womanhood as influenced by external and internal racial structures.

From this, it can be argued that tranquility for Black readers does not exist as we can’t seem to escape the dark realities of the black experience, even in fiction.

In Beale Street, we meet Tish and Fonny, a young black couple whose new life together is derailed when Fonny is falsely accused of rape and imprisoned without a trial date in site. This matter is worsened when Tish discovers that she is pregnant after Fonny’s arrest.

The circumstances surrounding Fonny’s arrest is a scenario that has been seen time and again as Mrs. Rogers, the woman accusing Fonny of rape is “parroting testimony fed to her by officer Bell, a white cop who is out to get Fonny for having publicly degraded Bell’s badge and reputation” (Harris, 55).

Again, this isn’t a situation that is unique to this novel or the time period; false criminal accusations against black men is something that has always been happening.

Fonny is at the mercy of a racist judicial system that preys on men of color. According to the NAACP, In 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34%, of the total 6.8 million correctional population.

As an example of wrongful incarceration, I’d like to briefly touch on the case of Kalief Browder. He was a young black boy who, at 16 years old, was held on Rikers Island for 3 years awaiting trial for a robbery he did not commit. After being released without any charges brought against him, Browder took his life due to the trauma he experienced at the hands of both inmates and correctional officers.

Knowing that there are rarely happy endings for black men who Are wrongfully imprisoned, Baldwin provides readers with insight to the trauma of prison life through Daniel Carty, Fonny’s childhood friend who was also falsely accused and arrested for a crime he did not commit.

When speaking to Fonny, as if to foreshadow Fonny’s own arrest, Carty reveals his own experience with prison: “They can do with you whatever they want. Whatever they want. And they dogs, man. I really found out in the slammer, what Malcolm and them cats was talking about. The white man’s got to be the devil. He sure ain’t a man. Some of the things I saw, baby, I’ll be dreaming about until the day I die.”

BLACK LOVE AS A REVOLUTION

Baldwin provides us with hope through the simplest, yet most effective tool: love. Fonny and Tish’s love, despite the external forces that threaten it, is a weapon that combats the difficulties they endure throughout the novel.

In a world that devalues black men and woman, even in the face of adversity, Baldwin shows black readers that they are capable of not only loving through pain but using that love to survive in a system that works against black Americans.

Through love, Baldwin is telling black readers that the black experience isn’t always rooted in pain. In can be sweet, funny, touching, and even wondrous. The most prominent proof of this is Tish’s pregnancy, as it represents faith and hope for a new beginning for Fonny and Tish. The preparation for the baby, in addition to her love for Fonny, is what drives Tish to seek justice. It’s what keeps Fonny grounded while he endures a traumatic and live changing experience inside prison.

Tranquility in Beale Street is offered to Black readers in the form of faith and the affirmation that African Americans are capable of meeting tribulations with hope and light as Baldwin illustrates through Tish and Fonny’s love and devotion for one another.

This brings us to our next question, “Does Beale Street generate the idea of Black love as a revolution amidst oppression to remedy the harshness of the black experience?”

I believe the answer to this question is yes.

“But, just remember, love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.”

- Sharon (Baldwin, 112)

Love is woven throughout the text and goes beyond the emotional and physical connection between Fonny and Tish. It becomes its own character, offering a degree of protection and motivation throughout the text as illustrated by Sharon and Fonny’s words.

Now, don’t be scared,” he whispered. “Don’t be scared. Just remember that I belong to you. Just remember that I wouldn’t hurt you for nothing in this world. You just going to have to get used to me. And we got all the time in the world.

Fonny (Baldwin, 78)

Again, Fonny and Tish’s unborn child is the culmination of their love and carries the couple throughout Fonny’s incarceration and the racial discrimination they face. To love under an oppressive system despite all the reasons not to is revolutionary in and of itself as Black people at large are expected to fall under oppressive systems.

Baldwin proves this during an encounter they have where Fonny is under the threat of arrest from Officer Bell after defending Tish from a white man who attempted to assault her. Fearful of Fonny being arrested by the police officer racially profiling him, Tish uses her body as a shield to protect him, risking her own life in the process:

I was sure that the cop intended to kill Fonny; but he could not kill Fonny if I could keep my body between Fonny and this cop; and with all my strength, with all my love, my prayers...I held the back of my head against Fonny’s chest, held both his wrists between my two hands, and looked up into the face of this cop.

Tish (Baldwin, 137)

This act of resistance is a physical representation of Tish’s love and faith in the fact that her devotion to Fonny despite the consequences we see later, is enough to protect him at the moment.

FINAL THOUGHTS

To survive and be hopeful under an oppressive system that works to subdue is radical, and to find ways to love with a million reasons not to is revolutionary. This is what Baldwin is illustrating through the relationship of Tish and Fonny, and the impending arrival of their unborn child.

The open ending Baldwin leaves us with allows black readers to construct their own hopeful ending contrary to real life outcomes where wrongful imprisonment cases aren’t always met with justice as we’ve seen with Kalief Browder and many others.

Overall, black readers can find tranquility in perseverance through struggle, which Baldwin illustrates throughout this novel.

Finally, and most importantly, Baldwin is giving black readers the opportunity to take the lessons and foundations of Beale Street and apply it to everyday life as we navigate the realities of the black experience.