Baldwin, Gaza, and Venezuela: “Open Letter to the Born Again,” 1979

Posted on September 6, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

“The people who call themselves “born again” today have simply become members of the richest, most exclusive private club in the world, a club that the man from Galilee could not possibly hope—or wish—to enter.” — James Baldwin, 1979

The passage above is from “Open Letter to the Born Again” by writer, philosopher, and activist James Baldwin. It was written in September of 1979 and first published in The Nation.

Here’s another quote from the same letter:

“But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests…Finally: there is absolutely—repeat: absolutely—no hope of establishing peace in what Europe so arrogantly calls the Middle East (how in the world would Europe know? having so dismally failed to find a passage to India) without dealing with the Palestinians.”—James Baldwin

His words are 46 years old as of September 2025. And for your edification, the terms “Middle East” and “Far East” were/are geographic names created by and assigned to these areas by Great Britain based on these areas’ geographic proximity to Great Britain. I bring this up for two reasons.

First, there are people out there that think what is happening in Gaza is relatively new. While the genocide happening in Gaza now is far more horrific than in the past, Palestinians have been battling abuse and state-sponsored murder for decades.

The second reason I quoted Baldwin is because I met a 50-year-old white man some weeks ago who was a college graduate but who said he had not heard of James Baldwin until a couple of years ago. He was embarrassed by that. He told me so. He could not, for the life of him, explain why he had never heard of Baldwin. I knew why.

His identity as a white man did not require him to look any further than his whiteness for validation. It is one thing to have never read a particular author; after all, we cannot read everything. Yet, it is quite another thing to not even be able to identify an author that was an activist who was so public with his opinions for decades.

(James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) reads a book with a group of children, Durham, North Carolina, 1963. Photo by Steve Schapiro/Corbis via Getty Images)

I have listened to so many white co-workers who describe their families as in complete disarray and disagreement about Felon 47 and his many renewed atrocities. It is not that every white American wishes harm and abuse on peoples of color, but rather, as Christopher Ortiz so brilliantly noted in his essay The Empty Trauma of Whiteness: How Colonialism Stole Europe’s Soul, that, “People racialized as white aren’t the colonizer. They too have been colonized, and we’ve got to talk about it.” I strongly, strongly urge you to read Ortiz’s analysis.

People classifiable as “white” rarely identify themselves collectively as victims unless they can rationalize that their victimization is coming from or due to a person or a group of people that are not typically categorized as “white.” And if their victimizers are indeed classifiable as “white,” then the victimizers are defined by something other than race. If said victimizer has a different religion, then that difference often works in these instances.

Every white person, from the Neo-Nazi to the bleeding-hearted white liberal, to all those folks in between, know one fact that they typically cannot say out loud: The hatred and virulence of white racists and the white liberal guilt (and embarrassment) about those white racists are all rooted in a single foundation, a foundation that is no more than a sand castle on a beach. Any forceful wave will destroy it.

Many white folks are stumbling in the dark because they cannot (or will not) pinpoint the source of their betrayal. They and their ancestors have spent generations and entire lifetimes believing several sets of assumptions that were never true, and in this current political climate, those assumptions are now on life support.

The “colored” peoples of this world that whites see as “other,” never entirely believed in these same assumptions even when we pretended to believe. For peoples of color, the requirement of our assimilation into the “mainstream” (code for “white”) is/was, to mimic, at least on the surface, the ideas and values of whatever dominant group that is/was oppressing us in order to be accepted by the dominant group. Assimilation never works because inequity is built into the entire process.

Baldwin told everyone back in the mid-1980s that “the world is not white.” It never has been. Not unlike the character “Dorothy” in the film “The Wizard of Oz,” the captains of industry never told white folks that they could go home and join the rest of humanity if they clicked those Ruby slippers together.

The oligarchs have counted on you white folks to believe (and you have believed) in the Wizard of Oz who hides behind a curtain and who is no more than a snake oil salesman whose purpose is to sell you his wares, empty your pockets, and convince you of his omnipotence (that he never had) rather than of your shared humanity with the rest of the world.

Baldwin’s critique of white Christians in 1979 is no different than current critiques of white evangelicals who believe/d they are chosen by the Creator to plunder and control land and resources and people wherever they see fit.

If still alive, Baldwin would know that Western interests are after that 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves in Gaza that would make Palestine energy independent. That road to energy independence for Palestine was interrupted when Hamas struck Israel in a surprise attack in October of 2023; an attack that Israel uses to justify its deliberate and coordinated genocide of the people of Gaza.

When Baldwin wrote his Open Letter to the Born Again, Israel was then selling oil to Apartheid white-controlled South Africa; Nelson Mandela was still in prison and would remain there for another 11 years. And none of the above kept Jews safe anywhere in the world.

Now we have the savage-in-chief ordering the strike of a Venezuelan ship that was allegedly carrying narcotics when what Felon 47 and his empire-addicted crew wants is access to and control of Venezuela’s oil. Venezuela’s fighter jets flew over America’s Naval ships as a show of military strength. The stoking of fear is deliberate, the villainizing and “othering” of people who are not white is deliberate.

So, consider this. Latin America is mineral and resource rich. Gaza is mineral and resource rich. Venezuela’s allies are China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, Turkey, with additional allies on islands in the Caribbean that receive Venezuela’s subsidized oil. What you have been taught to assume/believe about being classified as “white” will lead you down a dark alley that neither you nor the entire nation of America will walk out of. You and many soldiers, however, might exit in body bags.

What so many white people fear is that other people they have never fully trusted might be correct in their analyses; the “others” might know something that they don’t know after having lived their entire lives believing that there was nothing they could not know or access. The captains of industry have always used you and made you their accomplices. This did not start with Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. It started well before the pilgrims on the ship called the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock.

Baldwin once wrote that, “You must embrace what you fear.” I will add that you cannot embrace what you fear if you are unwilling to name it. Without claiming it or acknowledging it, you remain bound to a script that you believe you wrote knowing in your subconscious that something or someone else wrote it for you.

©️ Leslye Joy Allen

Chronic Ignorance

Posted on July 12, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

Felon 47 was recently stunned to hear a Liberian official speak good English when the fact is the state that became the nation of Liberia was established by former African-American slaves with the assistance of the American Colonization Society in 1822.

In 1847, the state of Liberia established itself as a Republic and was recognized as such by several European nations.

Yet, Trumpolini was amazed to hear a Liberian speak grammatically correct English when English has been Liberia’s official language ever since its inception as a settlement, then later as a country over 200 years ago.

It gets worse. Back when George W. Bush was president he admitted to Condoleeza Rice that he didn’t know that there were Black people in Brazil. Brazil has more people of African descent than any other nation outside of the continent of Africa itself.

During the trans-Atlantic slave trade 4.9 million Africans were transported to Brazil. Yet, George W. Bush—never the sharpest crayon in the box—was surprised that there were Black folks in Brazil.

This kind of ignorance ranks right up there with the people who don’t know and never knew that the majority of Africans were not transported to the American Colonies/United States, but were transported primarily to Latin America and the Caribbean.

And the worst ignorance of all is the notion that Africans learned specific skills once they left the continent. Africans in the Senegambia region of Africa had been planting rice for over 2,000 years before Yeshu’a ben Yosef (aka “Jesus”) was born. For the record, there is no letter “J” in the Hebrew and Aramaic languages that he spoke.

(Graphic of an African Blacksmith)

The Nok culture, the Kingdom of Kush and the Shona people of the continent of Africa were specialists in Iron smeltingthousands of years before there was any trans-Atlantic slave trade. Many African ethnic groups arrived here as Blacksmiths. Africans were transported to what Europeans called the “New World” or the “Americas” to do two things—perform the work Europeans did not want to do and the work Europeans could not do.

Now, just look at what is sitting in the White House: a man meaner than a rattlesnake and dumber than a box of rocks who doesn’t know how to do anything but mistreat people.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

I am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp.

You can also subscribe to my writings on Substack and stay in the loop with the best new research, history, journalism, prose, poetry, and etcetera.

The Steps Called Books

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

For people who have been reading my posts, you may have noticed that I have written about the United States’ severe literacy crisis twice on this platform. If not, you can read them here: The USA Literacy Crisis & This Election and Literacy Crisis, Part II.

This essay is Part III. Let me point out a few things first. Some 65 years ago in 1960, the United States was one of the most literate nations in the world. In 1960, only a handful of states in this country had an illiteracy rate of 10% for people aged 14 and over. The rest of the states registered only about 3% illiteracy. Now we rank 36th in the world for literacy among industrialized nations. There are other sources that place the USA at a literacy rate much lower.

In 2025, 21% of American adults are completely illiterate while 54% of adults read below the 6th grade level. I want to share with you in this essay, however, what poor reading and writing skills look like when these circumstances are also combined with educational red tape.

I taught College History courses for roughly 7+ years, from 2007 to early 2015. My first 2 years, I taught at a Junior College that had several campuses outside the city limits of Atlanta in the outlying metropolitan areas. My last 5 years I taught at large state universities. Junior Colleges are structured for students who have some academic deficits. Students often attend Junior Colleges to fix a deficit in some academic discipline so that they can eventually qualify to attend a four-year institution to earn a Bachelor’s degree.

When I started teaching, I taught year round. After I taught on this particular campus for about two semesters, I noticed that this campus was slowly being converted into a cash cow. The school started accepting anyone who could pay tuition and occasionally referred to students as “customers.” That did not go down well with me and a lot of other Instructors and Professors.

Most of my History students had some problems with reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. I usually spent the first 3 weeks of every semester correcting grammar and insisting that they trust their answers and their own instincts.

When I asked a simple question, initially none of them could state the obvious answer. I demanded that my students give complete and well-thought out answers and opinions in class discussions instead of the abbreviated and one-word answers that chronic text messaging had fostered.

The majority of my students rose to the occasion. They did the work, read my comments, listened to my instructions and suggestions, and put in the extra time needed to get up to speed in writing and having in-depth discussions about History. I did have one student, whose identity I never knew, who complained about having to write 3 five-page long History papers. Imagine having to write 3 papers in a 16-week long semester in college.

I learned later through the grapevine that this student allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with some man in the Junior College’s administration to who that student complained. One day I was informed that I would have to attend a meeting with my Department Chair and the Ombudsman of the School.

During the meeting, both my Department Chair and the Ombudsman kept telling me things like “Many of these students might not know how to interpret what you tell them. They might not understand what you say to them or write on their papers. One student said you told him or her that they could not write!”

I was confused and raised these points: “I have NEVER told a student that they cannot write. I have told or wrote to many of them, however, that they needed to take a good writing course so that they can improve their writing skills and get more practice writing cogent papers. Also, I speak grammatically correct English in the classroom. How can I know when a student cannot understand grammatically correct English? What type of language or techniques are you asking me to use?”

They both stopped talking for about 30 seconds. I interrupted their silence. “Are you asking me to water down my curriculum?!” No one answered my question. They both began to reiterate how much the students might not understand what I asked students to do. I repeated the question FOUR more times. They NEVER answered my question.

When they suggested that I attend a seminar on Customer Service Skills, it was all I could do to hold my tongue. Then my Department Chair finally ruptured this charade of a meeting and asked me, “Do you want this job?”

I swallowed hard and paused for a good 20 seconds and responded, “That’s a rather loaded question, don’t you think? Obviously, when I applied for this job, I wanted and needed a job. I still do. However, anyone who might be offered a better job somewhere else would probably take the better job. That includes me too.”

When I walked out of that office, I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. The Department Chair’s secretary looked at me as I exited and said “Leslye, what did they do to you in there?! Please, please don’t look like that.” I told her I would come back later and fill her in on the details after the Department Chair went to lunch.

So, here was the dilemma. That handful of students that never had any intention of studying and improving their literacy and writing abilities were now expecting to receive passing grades when they were just as inept at the end of the semester as they were at the beginning of it. That meeting, however, was not my worst moment on that campus.

A young Black woman student emailed me and asked me, when the time came, to write her recommendation letter to Spelman College. She had sent in an application to Spelman and assumed that she would be accepted. When I checked her records, she only had a GPA of about 2.0.

Spelman College is a Historically Black College for women that has always teemed with academic brilliance. No girl graduating high school will even be considered for admission with a GPA less than a 3.5. The average GPA of students who are admitted is a 3.8. It is a highly competitive school with an admission rate of only about 34% of applicants.

I very delicately wrote to this young woman that she would need to pull her grades up in order to get into Spelman. I wrote that she should not be discouraged because, “I know you can do it if you work hard and apply yourself by taking some additional classes.” This was my attempt to tell her the hard truth without crushing her dreams or suggesting that she give up. I signed my name to the email, pressed the “Send” button, and sat and cried for about 15 minutes.

It took me years to understand that people who don’t read well or who rarely read at all constantly misinterpret the meanings in spoken and written language. They also assign their own meanings to what people say and write with little to no comprehension. They make decisions based on what they think or feel about something a person said or wrote.

That is where we are in the United States right now. We have a majority adult population that responds to most political propaganda with their emotions and assumptions, never exactly or entirely based on actual facts. Moreover, many don’t even know where or how to look for the facts.

If the Democrats do not figure out how to reach out to semi-literate people stumbling in the dark with information they can barely decipher, then the Democrats are in danger of losing elections for the next several decades. The Political Left is also doomed to be reduced to little more than a group of well-read, but also self-righteous, ideologues that do not know how to reach the people they need to reach who don’t fit the definition of “well-read.”

One of the things that made my home boy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. so effective was that he was a young man with a doctorate degree who could go hang out in a pool room and shoot pool and talk trash with the men who hung out there as easily as he could address heads-of-state. He could render presidents and prime ministers speechless because he was better educated and more in-tune with what people needed than the vast majority of them.

He could talk with ease to the poorly educated and to the best educated. For those who don’t know, Martin Luther King Jr. was an exceptional scholar who entered college at age 14 and who graduated Morehouse College at the age of 18 and had earned his doctorate by the time he was 25 years old. Kamala Harris’ Mama also had her doctorate degree by the age of 25. She was working in a laboratory when her water broke with her then soon-to-be-born first child that she named “Kamala.”

(Photo of M.L. shooting pool in Atlanta in 1966. The tall guy on the far right in the cap and glasses was then a Morehouse College Freshman named Samuel Leroy Jackson.)

What is my point? Education and literacy matters; and its singular purpose is to help people focus on what they need to be focused on. In 1960, a man or woman in the United States with little resources knew that the public library was still free and they made good use of it. Today, our semi-literate majority adult population that cannot stay still long enough to read a 5-minute article because they are always ready to look at something that is “trending,” is what we are confronted with now.

Long after I left the classroom, I ran into one of my former students from the Junior College where I once taught. He was attending Georgia State University and was about to graduate. Excited to run into me, he said, “I hated you back then. But you pushed me and demanded that I get the work done. Now, I can’t stop reading and doing research. I cannot read enough BOOKS!”

Hugging his neck I said, “Don’t ever stop. The more you dig the more you will know.

So, in the names of your favorite teachers, instructors and professors, please keep talking about the truths and the dangers of a largely illiterate and poor reading nation. Our welfare as a nation and as human beings depend on it.

I was am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp.

You can also subscribe to my writings on Substack and stay in the loop with the best new research, history, journalism, prose, poetry, and etcetera.

Walk With a Book

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

I remember the first time I heard someone say, “If you want to hide something, hide it in a book.” The comment depressed me.

When you are a historian, you have books everywhere. You have to read all the time. I have not seen the top of my dining room table in nearly 15 years as it is covered with stacks of books. Books occupy every nook and cranny of my home.

With the United States ranking 36th in the world for literacy, with a 79% literacy rate, with only 25% of literate adults reading above the 6th grade level, we are already dumb. We can expect to see more decline in literacy with Felon 47 living on Pennsylvania Avenue.

So, I have a proposal. It might not change anything, but it is worth a try. Walk out of your door with a book in your hand or tucked under your arm everyday for at least a month.

Let kids and other adults see you walk with that book. And don’t say you can’t do this. You have carried books before when you were in grade school.

Make your book/s visible at your job, on a trip to a store. Hell, go for a walk with your book until someone asks you why you always have a book in your hand or under your arm. And then have the audacity to tell them why.

An Aging, Weary Black Woman’s Directives

Posted on December 4, 2024 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

1. Do not waste what is left of your life on sexists, misogynists, practitioners of misogynoir, racists, homomisics, transmisics, xenomisics, and on people too lazy to look inside a dictionary to discover what these words, with their prefixes and suffixes, mean.

2. Never render CPR nor succor to those who are not kind, who cannot be kind, and who think it is a waste of their time to be kind.

3. Follow Malcolm X’s request to never call any man “brother” until he demonstrates that he is one.

4. When confronted by sworn enemies, do not, as my late Mama would say, “bother to piss down their throats even if their guts are on fire.”

5. If some illiterate soul wants to learn how to read, point them to the nearest literacy class. If some soul doesn’t read much, but wants to read more, give them books. The ones who refuse to read, leave them alone.

6. Per the instructions of my second grade teacher Sister Mary Gemma, always remember that, “you only have two cheeks. Therefore, you only turn the other cheek once.”

7. Rest on purpose. My late Daddy used to say, “Let the men do some of the work because they owe you the same things they already believe you owe them, on demand.”

8. Stop fighting every battle. My late cousin Billie used to say, “You can’t fight in every skirmish if you plan to win the war.”

9. Stop adding caveats like, “I don’t want anybody to take this the wrong way, but…” or “I don’t want anybody to get upset, but…”to your opinions. These kinds of caveats and prefaces, as Dr. Jacqueline Howard Matthews would say, is an apology for your opinion before you even render your opinion.

10. As Black women en masse we have no permanent friends, only permanent interests.

#MakeAmericaLiterateAgain

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