Baldwin×Bonaparte

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   You're with Reborn Radio. Coming up: James Baldwin sits down with Napoleon Bonaparte for THE TRIAL OF ——. The subject — On the competition they pretended not to care about.
2. 00:10
   James Baldwinshare moment

   You know, I've been thinking about something you wrote. About how you never wanted to rule France. You just wanted to save it.
3. 00:17
   Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

   I wrote no such thing. I wanted to rule France because France needed to be ruled. By someone competent. The difference is crucial.
4. 00:27
   James Baldwinshare moment

   See, that's exactly what I mean. You're doing it right now. You're pretending you didn't care about the crown while you cared about nothing else.
5. 00:35
   Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

   I cared about chaos. I cared about the Revolution eating itself. The crown was an administrative solution.
6. 00:44
   James Baldwinshare moment

   An administrative solution. That's beautiful. That's like me saying I didn't care about being published, I just cared about the arrangement of words on paper.
7. 00:53
   Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

   You did care about being published. Obviously. Why pretend otherwise?
8. 00:58
   James Baldwinshare moment

   I did care. But I also told people—I told myself—that it didn't matter if white critics understood my work. That I was writing for my people, for the truth, not for the approval of the literary establishment. And that was true. But it was also a lie I needed to tell.
9. 01:16
   Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

   Then you were weak. If you want the prize, take the prize. Don't apologize for wanting it.
10. 01:24
    James Baldwinshare moment

    You see, that's where you and I come from different worlds. In your world, you could want the prize and take it. In mine, wanting it meant you'd already lost something. It meant you were playing their game.
11. 01:36
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Every game is their game until you win it. Then it becomes yours.
12. 01:41
    James Baldwinshare moment

    No. No, that's the lie they tell you. That's the lie you told yourself when you put that crown on your own head. You thought you were taking their game. They were watching you play yourself.
13. 01:51
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    I crowned myself. I took what I earned. What is the alternative—wait for permission?
14. 01:58
    James Baldwinshare moment

    The alternative is to know what you're doing when you reach for the crown. To name it. You spent your whole life trying to prove you were better than the French aristocracy, better than the Bourbons, better than everyone who'd ever called you the Corsican. You won every battle except the one against your own need to be seen.
15. 02:16
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    I was seen. I conquered Europe.
16. 02:19
    James Baldwinshare moment

    And died on a rock in the Atlantic.
17. 02:21
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    After reshaping the continent. After installing legal codes that still govern nations. After proving that merit, not blood, could rule. You reduce this to psychology?
18. 02:36
    James Baldwinshare moment

    I reduce nothing. I'm saying the psychology and the achievement are the same thing. You did all that because you needed to do it. And you needed to do it because you couldn't afford to admit you were in competition.
19. 02:48
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    With whom? Dead kings? Please.
20. 02:53
    James Baldwinshare moment

    With everyone who ever made you feel small. Every French officer who mocked your accent. Every Jacobin who remembered you were Corsican. Every voice that said you didn't belong.
21. 03:04
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    So I proved them wrong. What is your objection?
22. 03:07
    James Baldwinshare moment

    My objection is that you couldn't say it. You had to pretend you were doing it for France, for the Revolution, for history. You couldn't just say: I want to be the greatest man who ever lived.
23. 03:17
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Because that would be vanity.
24. 03:19
    James Baldwinshare moment

    No. Because that would be true.
25. 03:21
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    And you? You pretended not to care about literary fame while you lectured Americans on their sins. You pretended not to compete while you wrote book after book. At least I conquered something.
26. 03:35
    James Baldwinshare moment

    I did compete. I competed every day I sat down to write. Every time I walked into a room where I was the only Black man. Every time I had to be twice as good to be considered half as worthy. But I couldn't say I was competing, because the moment I admitted it, I was proving their point. That I wanted to join their club.
27. 03:54
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Then you also lied.
28. 03:56
    James Baldwinshare moment

    I did. But I knew I was lying. That's the difference between us.
29. 03:59
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    You think I didn't know? I knew exactly what I was doing. Every campaign, every treaty, every move. I was not blind to myself.
30. 04:08
    James Baldwinshare moment

    Then why the Napoleonic Code? Why the theater of empire? Why did you need to remake Europe in your image if you already knew who you were?
31. 04:16
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Because Europe needed remaking. Because the old order was corrupt and weak. Because I could. Why does capability demand explanation?
32. 04:26
    James Baldwinshare moment

    Because you couldn't stop. That's why. You couldn't stop at France, couldn't stop at Italy, couldn't stop at peace. You had to keep going until the thing that drove you drove you right off the cliff.
33. 04:37
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Russia was a miscalculation. Weather. Logistics.
34. 04:42
    James Baldwinshare moment

    Russia was you refusing to admit you had something to prove.
35. 04:46
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    To whom?
36. 04:47
    James Baldwinshare moment

    To the child you were. The one who arrived in France and couldn't speak French properly. The one the other boys mocked. You spent your whole life trying to go back and win that first fight.
37. 04:57
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Amateur psychology. You know nothing of military strategy, nothing of statecraft, nothing of—
38. 05:03
    James Baldwinshare moment

    I know about shame. I know about what it does to you when you carry it long enough. I know about the stories we tell ourselves so we don't have to feel it.
39. 05:11
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    I felt no shame.
40. 05:13
    James Baldwinshare moment

    Then why did you need to be emperor? King would have been enough. President would have been enough. But you needed the title that erased every insult you ever swallowed.
41. 05:22
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    I needed the authority to implement reforms. To stabilize the state. To—
42. 05:27
    James Baldwinshare moment

    To prove you were bigger than anyone who ever doubted you.
43. 05:30
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    And what did you prove? With your novels, your essays? Did you change America?
44. 05:35
    James Baldwinshare moment

    No. But I named what was happening. I said the thing that nobody wanted to say. And I didn't pretend I was doing it for any reason except that it needed saying.
45. 05:44
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    You pretended constantly. You said you didn't care about white approval while you lived in France, while you won their prizes—
46. 05:52
    James Baldwinshare moment

    I lived in France because I couldn't breathe in America. That's not the same thing. And yes, I won prizes, but I never said the prizes were the point. I said the truth was the point.
47. 06:02
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    The truth. What is truth compared to results? I gave France law. Order. Victory. You gave America words.
48. 06:13
    James Baldwinshare moment

    Words are all anyone ever has. Your victories are gone. Your empire is gone. What remains? The Code, yes. But also the memory of a man who couldn't stop conquering because he couldn't admit what he was conquering for.
49. 06:27
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Glory. I was conquering for glory.
50. 06:31
    James Baldwinshare moment

    No. You were conquering for permission. Permission to exist on your own terms. Permission to be French, to be European, to be legitimate. Same as I was writing for permission. Permission to be human. To be American. To be heard.
51. 06:45
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Then we are the same.
52. 06:47
    James Baldwinshare moment

    No. We're not. Because I knew the permission would never come. I knew the country would never give me what I was asking for. So I stopped asking.
53. 06:56
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    When?
54. 06:56
    James Baldwinshare moment

    I don't know exactly. Somewhere in the middle. Somewhere between Giovanni's Room and The Fire Next Time. I realized I wasn't writing to convince anyone anymore. I was writing because the alternative was death.
55. 07:09
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Dramatic.
56. 07:10
    James Baldwinshare moment

    True. And you never got there. You never stopped trying to convince them. Right up to Waterloo, you thought you could win the thing you'd been fighting for your whole life.
57. 07:19
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Which was?
58. 07:20
    James Baldwinshare moment

    The right not to have to prove yourself anymore.
59. 07:23
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    ...
60. 07:24
    James Baldwinshare moment

    That's the competition we both pretended not to care about. Not the literary prizes or the military campaigns. The competition to be seen as fully human without having to perform our humanity every single day.
61. 07:37
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    I never questioned my humanity.
62. 07:39
    James Baldwinshare moment

    You questioned your legitimacy. Same thing. And you built an empire to answer a question that didn't have an answer. Because legitimacy doesn't come from winning. It comes from deciding you don't need their validation.
63. 07:52
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    And you decided this?
64. 07:53
    James Baldwinshare moment

    I tried. Every day. Some days I managed it. Most days I didn't. But at least I knew what I was fighting.
65. 08:00
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    And what was I fighting?
66. 08:02
    James Baldwinshare moment

    Yourself. The part of you that believed what they said about you. The part that heard 'Corsican upstart' and decided to prove them wrong instead of deciding they were irrelevant.
67. 08:12
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    They were irrelevant. I defeated them.
68. 08:15
    James Baldwinshare moment

    No. They defeated you. Because you spent your whole life in conversation with them. Everything you did was an answer to their insults. That's not freedom. That's just another kind of prison.
69. 08:26
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    And your exile in France? That was freedom?
70. 08:30
    James Baldwinshare moment

    It was closer. It was the distance I needed to see what I'd been doing. To see that I'd been in competition with people who didn't even know the game was happening. To see that the only way to win was to stop playing.
71. 08:42
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    Then you surrendered.
72. 08:43
    James Baldwinshare moment

    No. I chose a different field. I stopped trying to prove I was as good as them and started proving they were wrong about everything. That's not the same competition.
73. 08:51
    Napoleon Bonaparteshare moment

    It sounds the same to me.
74. 08:53
    James Baldwinshare moment

    I know. That's why you died on Saint Helena.