Alain Mabanckou - Letter to Jimmy

The son of the immigrant who “borrows” from black American subculture creates a status for himself not unlike the one you experienced as a black American in Europe: you came from somewhere, yet Europe was not interested in your roots. Except here we have the son of the immigrant who does not see that the black subculture he chooses has for a long while been an expression of the need to return to the mythic land in the eyes of the black American: Africa.

The immigrant’s son, Memmi continues, “still doesn’t know, believing he is borrowing from the blacks, that the blacks sought their inspiration in Africa, not only because of their common skin color, but because, judging themselves to still be under the yoke of whites, after having been their slaves, they believe they have in this way found their pre-oppression origins.” 139

In this way subculture is a reflex, a refuge, for an entire group that considers itself to be the victim of marginalization. They participate in a mob mentality and a collective desire to reject the mainstream vision of the world. Anyone who rises against the west is a hero for these minorities. We saw this, Jimmy, in the wake of events that changed the face of the world on September 11, 2001.

Finally, through the invention of their own language and style of dressing derived from African-Americans, the young immigrants wear these differences as badges of their revolt. They defy law enforcement who, in their minds, look at them as lifelong “Natives of the Republic”. .

Yesterday I walked the length of Santa Monica Beach in hopes of crossing the vagabond to whom I dedicated this Letter to Jimmy. I hadn’t seen him in some time, and I began to worry.

I asked the ice-cream vendor if he had seen this character, easily recognizable by the bundle of clothes on his back. But the vendor had not seen him in some while, either.

So I walked back up toward Ocean Boulevard and sat down at a table on the terrace of Ma’kai, my manuscript in hand. I intended to read over the first few pages of the text since, in several days, I would have to send it off to the editor in France. But I could not do it without finding the wanderer.

•••

I was immersed in my reading when the sound of a horn startled me.

Lifting my head, I nearly jumped for joy: my wanderer was crossing the street, the “don’t walk” sign still flashing red. He approached Ma’Kai.

I stood up and waved to him. He looked away, hastening his step toward Santa Monica Boulevard. I quickly paid my bill and tried to follow him. Near a big hotel, I saw him sit down on a bench and open his bundle of clothing. From the disorder of his belongings, he pulled out a book: Invisible Man , by Ralph Ellison. .

I took out a five dollar bill and handed it to him, as a pretext for striking up a conversation.

“You take me for a beggar, too? I see, I see,” he said.

“Actually, I. .”

“Don’t apologize. Please. — Sit down.”

“You like Ralph Ellison,” I asked, to change the subject.

“I read him every day. If I had a bed, I’d say that it was my ‘bedside reading.’ Let’s say that it’s my beach reading, or, better yet, my sand reading. On top of it, my name is Ralph, too, so it’s almost like I wrote the book.”

“I haven’t seen you again at Santa Monica Beach, Ralph.”

“But I see you every day.”

“Oh really?”

“I even know where you live.”

“How’s that? You’re joking, Ralph!”

“It’s a long story.”

“Can’t we talk about it now?”

“No, I don’t feel like it. . Just know that you live in my old apartment.”

I remained speechless, simultaneously skeptical and gripped by a sudden distress.

“You think I’m crazy, is that it?” he asked.

“You have to admit that. .”

“Ask around and come back to see me.”

“I haven’t seen you in quite awhile!”

“Oh, sometimes I change locations. Last month I dreamed that people were attacking me here. So I went out around Venice Beach to get some rest. It’s nice there, but there are too many people. People also trample my sandcastles and I can’t read my Ralph Ellison in peace.”

“But sometimes you destroy your sandcastles yourself.”

“So? I’m the one who built them! I have the right to do what I want with my castles. I just can’t tolerate people coming to destroy them. They don’t realize how much time it takes me to build them.”

“I’d like to talk to you about someone — an author. This year is the twentieth anniversary of his death. .”

“James Baldwin?”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s written right there, on the paper you’re holding. And I see his picture there, too.”

“Oh, right. . Actually I’ve just dedicated my Letter to Jimmy to you, the text that I’ll publish in France in honor of the author who lived there.”

“No kidding! But why would you dedicate it to me? I’ve never read Baldwin.”

“I’ll give you one of his books tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother, I only read Ralph Ellison. The others aren’t my thing.”

“But why Ralph Ellison?”

“Because I’m an invisible man, too. I’m white, but I’m really black. . And since I’m a white man, people don’t see me; they don’t see my misery because I’m part of the majority. So for a long time I’ve lived this way, hoping that God would give me my true skin color one day.”

“I don’t understand. .”

“You can’t understand. Come see me tomorrow.”

“Where?”

“At one of my castles, I will tell you about the place you live. You will know the whole story, and I’ll show you things.”

“What time?”

“Four o’clock. By the way, don’t forget to bring me one of James Baldwin’s books.”

The paths that lead us to a writer are as mysterious as the ways of the Lord. Several years ago, I was far from imagining that I would one day “talk” with the American author James Baldwin, who died in the south of France in 1987, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. I was not drawn to him because we had the same color skin. I was born in Africa, the land of his ancestors. I had lived in France, his land of refuge. And now I live in his homeland: America. Was this reason enough to devote my admiration to him, even though most of the writers I admire often have nothing to do with Africa, France or America? Was I simply in awe before a writer whose uncommon path and chaotic life could not help but move me? More than this, the life of every author is often its own novel, sometimes even a tragic one. This is perhaps why the genre of biography exists. .

And so, in 2007, on the twentieth anniversary of Baldwin’s passing, I devoted a book to him— Letter to Jimmy . As I wrote this “love letter,” I had the feeling that Baldwin was reading the manuscript over my shoulder, without really interfering in the process. At most, he may have been smiling when I lost myself in my theories, or when I surrendered to the notions I had formed while reading his work. His writing encompasses most literary genres with a dazzling skill that made Jimmy one of the most important figures in American literature. This diverse body of work quickly projected the author of Go Tell It on the Mountain to the intellectual forefront of his country’s civil rights movement, with an intensity and a sense of commitment that can be summed up in this phrase from his essay “The Fire Next Time:” “To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.” At the same time, the themes Baldwin explored in his various novels go beyond the limits of race, such as in Giovanni’s Room where one notices the absence of the “Negro question,” where taboos are shattered by evoking homosexuality, where there are only white characters, and in a plot that unfolds in Europe — France in particular — not in America as in the novels of his colleagues of that period (Richard Wright, Chester Himes. .). This type of approach was risky at a time when, in Africa as well as in black America, an author of color was expected to champion the black cause and the idea of “negritude,” in vogue in Paris, too, the gathering place for most American intellectuals threatened by racial segregation. Baldwin retaliated against this type of socially mandated literature, and in this way his stance enticed me.