Re-staging the enduring epistemological violence
“The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro”. Claimed by James Baldwin at the Cambridge Union Society in 1965. Coming less than a year after the Civil Rights Act and disputes around desegregation, the Baldwin-Buckley debate brought into confrontation two sharply different understandings of American liberalism: Baldwin’s historically grounded account of racial inequality and Buckley’s defence of constitutional ideals and gradual reform. To a great extent, this debate is still piercingly relevant within today’s political and ethnical climate.
It doesn’t really matter who you side with – which can be easily told from the applause of the audience at Wilton’s Music Hall, a predominantly white community performance venue. By re-staging and re-visiting this debate, director Christopher McElroen invites us
for more provocative and radical thoughts. This debate is not only about racism, inequality and American liberalism in the mid-twentieth century, but also about how centuries-long epistemological and systematic violence that frames inequality as even “debatable”, which tragically still continues today.
Had the motion been framed as “The United States has never treated Black Americans as equal citizens”, then there would be little room for a moral or a philosophical equivocation. However, framed instead as a question of whether equality exists “at the expense of” Black Americans, then it becomes intellectually, economically and philosophically muddied. Marxists might argue that all proletariats are subject to exploration, and French thinkers may critique both sides for relying on zero-sum assumption, so both positions misfire. Just as Buckley repeatedly insists, matters are complicated so there is no instance cure. But why? Because addressing inequality is clear and direct, thus demanding direct and clear change. However, wrapping injustice in layers of sophistication can win conservatives a grey zone for non-responsibility. In other words, such debate, itself, is a luxury and privilege that not only turns structural violence into a topic, but also treats inequality as something need to be weighed.
Furthermore, such framing also positions the Black Americans (and their allies) in a role that they always need to self-defend and self-explain, to render their existence legible to the White audience. Baldwin must have his reality of inequality justified and translated again and again, while Buckley has the ultimate freedom to dismiss Baldwin’s claim as “irrelevant”. Baldwin must speak while Buckley enjoys his intellectual supremacy to theorise. The debate, to a great extent, thus becomes a perfect meta-instance of the ever-lasting inequality.
Despite the tragic nature of the debate, the four actors are brilliant at reconstructing that night. Arnell Powell’s Baldwin is historically faithful, marked by a crystal-clear charisma, embodying his Black leadership as both empathetic and powerful. Eric T. Miller presents Buckley as an obviously knowledgeable intellectual, unconscious of his own privilege, apologetic toward Black history in manner but not in substance. Miller also delivers great audience engagement, frequently gazing and talking back to the audience members. As David Haycock, Christopher Wareham brings a compassionate, heartfelt presence with a subtle irony against Buckley when introducing his God and Man at Yale. Wareham’s character may best reflect the young voices in the 1960s – protesting and rebelling against the establishment. Meanwhile, Tom Kiteley’s Jeremy Burford is rendered as scholarly and faintly nerdy, delivered in a posh British accent with deadpan humour.