A Hopeful Memoir of the ‘Baldwin/Buckley Debate’ in 1965, in Cambridge, England

Abstract

The author recounts his experience of the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. in 1965, in Cambridge, England. The debate, which has become “infamous” in the history of American conservative political thought and in the history of race relations, was characterised by unconscious mirroring and othering in connection with intersectionality and processes of prejudice and discrimination associated with it. The author also summarises some of his subsequent work on the topic of mature hope.