In If Beale Street Could Talk, Baldwin draws a connection between racism and fear, suggesting that bigots use intimidation tactics to suppress black people. Throughout the novel, he portrays fear as something that keeps young African Americans like Fonny and his friend Daniel from addressing their own oppression. What’s more, it becomes clear that this kind of racism is institutionalized, meaning that the structures of power surrounding Fonny and his loved ones actively work to disenfranchise them. Daniel, for his part, understands this well because he has already spent time in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, and now that he’s finally out of prison, he’s even more frightened than he was before, too scared to strive for true freedom because he simply can’t fathom a life unbridled by hatred and persecution. In this way, readers see that white America oppresses people like Daniel and Fonny by putting them in positions of powerlessness and then scaring them out of standing up for themselves. Baldwin also shows readers how racist power structures turn young black men against one another, which is what happens when the District Attorney tries to scare Daniel out of serving as a witness in Fonny’s case. As such, Baldwin highlights how America’s unjust and coercive systems of power put black people at a severe disadvantage, ultimately using fear to isolate people like Daniel and Fonny from their peers, which makes it even harder for them to advocate for themselves.
Fonny’s friend Daniel is no stranger to the constant fear that comes along with living in a racist system. Telling Fonny and Tish about why he went to prison, Daniel says he was too afraid to stand up for his own innocence, outlining how his trial was rigged against him. “They said—they still say—[I] stole a car,” he says. “Man, I can’t even drive a car, and I tried to make my lawyer—but he was really their lawyer, dig, he worked for the city—prove that, but he didn’t.” Going on, Daniel says that when the officers came to arrest him, they found a small amount of marijuana on him, a fact that made it even harder to stand up for himself. “Since I had that weed on me, they had me anyhow and so they said if I would plead guilty they’d give me a lighter sentence. If I didn’t plead guilty, they’d throw me the book. Well, I was alone, baby, wasn’t nobody, and so I entered the guilty plea.” It’s important to note that Daniel emphasizes the fact that he “was alone” throughout this entire process. Not only do the prosecutors try to scare him into saying he’s guilty, but they ensure that he feels isolated from anyone who might help him. Knowing that it’s too risky to stand up for his own innocence, then, Daniel pleads guilty to a crime he didn’t commit, thereby proving that fear is often what prevents disempowered people from trying to rectify their own disenfranchisement.
What’s even more depressing about Daniel’s situation is that the fear he feels after having been unjustly targeted because of his race doesn’t simply disappear once he gets out of prison. This is made obvious by how frequently he comes to Tish and Fonny’s house to talk about the traumatic experiences he faced in prison, experiences that make him feel like he’ll “never again be the Daniel he had been.” In fact, Daniel is even afraid to walk from Fonny’s apartment to the subway by himself. Even though he’s out of prison, he can’t escape the constant terror he feels as a result of seeing firsthand how easily racists can subjugate him. “Daniel […] longs to be free to confront his life; is terrified at the same time of what that life may bring, is terrified of freedom; and is struggling in a trap,” Tish realizes, articulating that even the notion of “freedom” is unfathomable to Daniel because fear now runs his life. Unfortunately, this constant state of fear is likely what Fonny will also feel if he ever gets out of prison. In turn, Baldwin unveils the fact that systemic racism not only dictates whether or not a black person is wrongfully convicted, but also penetrates the emotional and existential elements of that person’s life, since this kind of manipulation can make a person afraid of life itself.
The District Attorney’s office and other racists in power know that people will act against their own best interests when they’re genuinely afraid. Furthermore, these bigots also understand that it’s even easier to inspire this kind of fear in a person if they isolate him from the people and resources that might otherwise help him advocate for himself. This is why they also arrest Daniel in connection with Fonny’s case, anticipating that Fonny’s lawyer, Hayward, will want to call on him as a witness, since Daniel was with Fonny during the time of the alleged rape. As such, the D.A. makes Daniel fear for his life, beating him in jail and making him afraid of coming to Fonny’s aid. “Without becoming Daniel’s lawyer, [Hayward] cannot visit him,” Tish notes at one point. “He suggests this to Daniel, but Daniel is evasive and afraid. Hayward suspects that Daniel has also been drugged and he does not know if he dares bring Daniel to the witness stand, or not.” Alone and “afraid,” Daniel is unlikely to help Fonny, a tragedy that illustrates the overwhelming power of fear and isolation.
Tish herself recognizes early in the novel that there are very few things a black person can do when he or she is in “trouble” in America. “Trouble means you’re alone,” she notes, thinking about the fact that she can’t simply stand up in public and ask for help. After all, even if strangers wanted to help her, “what could they do?” By spotlighting the combined effect of fear and isolation, then, Baldwin shows readers why it’s so hard to defeat racism, which is unfortunately deeply ingrained in America’s legal and social systems.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Racism, Fear, and Isolation ThemeTracker
Racism, Fear, and Isolation Quotes in If Beale Street Could Talk
If you cross the Sahara, and you fall, by and by vultures circle around you, smelling, sensing, your death. They circle lower and lower: they wait. They know. They know exactly when the flesh is ready, when the spirit cannot fight back. The poor are always crossing the Sahara. And the lawyers and bondsmen and all that crowd circle around the poor, exactly like vultures. Of course, they’re not any richer than the poor, really, that’s why they’ve turned into vultures, scavengers, indecent garbage men, and I’m talking about the black cats, too, who, in so many ways, are worse. I think that, personally, I would be ashamed.
I’ve never come across any shame down here, except shame like mine, except the shame of the hardworking black ladies, who call me Daughter, and the shame of proud Puerto Ricans, who don’t understand what’s happened—no one who speaks to them speaks Spanish, for example—and who are ashamed that they have loved ones in jail. But they are wrong to be ashamed. The people responsible for these jails should be ashamed.
And I’m not ashamed of Fonny. If anything, I’m proud. He’s a man. You can tell by the way he’s taken all this shit that he’s a man. Sometimes, I admit, I’m scared—because nobody can take the shit they throw on us forever. But, then, you just have to somehow fix your mind to get from one day to the next. If you think too far ahead, if you even try to think too far ahead, you’ll never make it.
I can’t say to anybody in this bus, Look, Fonny is in trouble, he’s in jail—can you imagine what anybody on this bus would say to me if they knew, from my mouth, that I love somebody in jail?—and I know he’s never committed any crime and he’s a beautiful person, please help me get him out. Can you imagine what anybody on this bus would say? What would you say? I can’t say, I’m going to have this baby and I’m scared, too, and I don’t want any thing to happen to my baby’s father, don’t let him die in prison, please, oh, please! You can’t say that. That means you can’t really say anything. Trouble means you’re alone.
Tish […], when we was first brought here, the white man he didn’t give us no preachers to say words over us before we had our babies. And you and Fonny be together right now, married or not, wasn’t for that same damn white man. So, let me tell you what you got to do. You got to think about that baby. You got to hold on to that baby, don’t care what else happens or don’t happen. You got to do that. Can’t nobody else do that for you. And the rest of us, well, we going to hold on to you. And we going to get Fonny out. Don’t you worry. I know it’s hard —but don’t you worry. And that baby be the best thing that ever happened to Fonny. He needs that baby. It going to give him a whole lot of courage.
Though the death took many forms, though people died early in many different ways, the death itself was very simple and the cause was simple, too: as simple as a plague: the kids had been told that they weren’t worth shit and everything they saw around them proved it. They struggled, they struggled, but they fell, like flies, and they congregated on the garbage heaps of their lives, like flies. And perhaps I clung to Fonny, perhaps Fonny saved me because he was just about the only boy I knew who wasn’t fooling around with the needles or drinking cheap wine or mugging people or holding up stores.
That same passion which saved Fonny got him into trouble, and put him in jail. For, you see, he had found his center, his own center, inside him: and it showed. He wasn’t anybody’s nigger. And that’s a crime, in this fucking free country. You’re suppose to be somebody's nigger. And if you’re nobody’s nigger, you’re a bad nigger: and that’s what the cops decided when Fonny moved down town.
They said—they still say—stole a car. Man, I can’t even drive a car, and I tried to make my lawyer—but he was really their lawyer, dig, he worked for the city—prove that, but he didn’t. And, anyway, I wasn’t in no car when they picked me up. But I had a little grass on me. I was on my stoop. And so they come and picked me up, like that, you know, it was about midnight, and they locked me up and then the next morning they put me in the lineup and somebody said it was me stole the car—that car I ain’t seen yet. And so—you know—since I had that weed on me, they had me anyhow and so they said if I would plead guilty they’d give me a lighter sentence. If I didn’t plead guilty, they’d throw me the book. Well […] I was alone, baby, wasn’t nobody, and so I entered the guilty plea. Two years!
Man, it was bad. Very bad. And it’s bad now. Maybe I’d feel different if I had done something and got caught. But I didn’t do nothing. They were just playing with me, man, because they could. And I’m lucky it was only two years, you dig? Because 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.
It seems to me that if I quit my job, I’ll be making the six o’clock visit forever. I explain this to Fonny, and he says he understands, and, in fact, he does. But understanding doesn’t help him at six o’clock. No matter what you understand, you can’t help waiting: for your name to be called, to be taken from your cell and led downstairs. If you have visitors, or even if you have only one visitor, but that visitor is constant, it means that someone outside cares about you. And this can get you through the night, into the day. No matter what you may understand, and really understand, and no matter what you may tell yourself, if no one comes to see you, you are in very bad trouble. And trouble, here, means danger.
He cannot tell what time it is, but it does not matter. The hours are all the same, the days are all the same. He looks at his shoes, which have no laces, on the floor beside the cot. […] He knows that he must do something to keep himself from drowning, in this place, and every day he tries. But he does not succeed. He can neither retreat into himself nor step out of himself. He is righteously suspended, he is still. He is still with fear.
