Marlon Brando on what James Baldwin taught him about white guilt and white responsibility:
“He made it very clear to me that all of us white liberals–guilty, well-meaning people–were merely a big flashlight cast upon the evil of racism, and the flashlight found some corners where it continued, and still continues, to live. ‘Throw the light,’ he told me, 'and then get out of the way. This is our battle to win.’ He also told me that I expected a medal or a blowjob if I opened a door for a black woman or helped a black man get a job. 'You are a white raindrop on the desert floor of America’s racism,’ he told me. He was right. But I kept showing up, being the flashlight, being the raindrop, and realizing how utterly hopeless our desire to expunge our guilt was. We deserve the guilt. The guilt stays with us. A cross, an anvil, to bear for eternity.”
