Inspired by Talley & Baldwin
I realized upon André Leon Talley’s death earlier this year that, although I had a passing awareness of his existence, I had no idea of his towering presence (physically or figuratively) in fashion, culture or the larger world. It has been a gift to take some time to learn more about him, to watch the documentary about his life, The Gospel According to André, to listen to interviews with and about him (a great episode of the Code Switch podcast featured three Black gay men working in media talking about the impact that he had on their lives and professional journeys). Something about learning about him—despite my near total ignorance about fashion and certainly the fashion world—completely switched my mind on. He has really gotten me thinking about what beauty, delight and joy have to do with conquering oppressive structures, what being playful gives us that sharpens our critique. And he is an incredible living representation of how lived experience informs how and where we disrupt, shake up the status quo and remake the world.
One resource I loved finding was an interview he did on Zoom in 2020 at Morehouse College. And apart from just enjoying the content of the conversation was that he introduced me to a book I’ve now started reading and can’t put down: Eddie Glaude, Jr.’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own. In particular this morning, I am fixated on one quote, spoken by Baldwin to a white reporter in an interview he did in 1968, a few months after the murder of MLK. Baldwin said: “You have a lot to face. All that can save you now is your confrontation with your own history, which is not your past but your present…. Your history has led you to this moment, and you can only begin to change yourself, and save yourself, by looking at what you’re doing in the name of your history.” What are we—and we can read this wider by thinking beyond the Black-white race binary, though that binary is a great place to start—doing in the name of our history? What changes are we making in ourselves, and then in the wider world, to save ourselves and our world? Glaude’s beautiful writing and the powerful parallels he draws between “the after times” of the Civil Rights Movement and our current Trumpian time, reflected through the life and writing of Baldwin, is calling me to action. White people, what are we doing? Are we willing to do more than read books, to attend one march, to listen and lament?
How awesome is it that at the very moment I was writing this post, my in-box pinged with a newsletter from one of my favorite racial justice organizations, Race Forward—which opened with a quote from Talley. Get yourself over to their website and see where you can start saving yourself by getting involved.
