Fact Check: The Truth About that Supposed James Baldwin Quote, 'We Can Disagree and Still Love Each Other'
Claim:
James Baldwin said, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
Rating:
Context:
It wasn't James Baldwin who said this, but essayist and novelist Robert Jones Jr., who used to write online under the moniker @sonofbaldwin. He wrote and posted these words on X (formerly Twitter) on Aug. 18, 2015.
For years, social media users and article writers have shared a quoted they have attributed to gay Black author James Baldwin:
https://www.facebook.com/NationalInstituteForCivilDiscourse/posts/pfbid0N39BpXvwCBs46gee9jZoTB1RvKk7puprX4worLsb55zX5pX1V8Gbxb194vWnqJEel
"We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist." — James Baldwin
Besides spreading on Reddit, Threads and X, the quote has appeared on the social media platform where people share the books they read, Goodreads, as well as in articles. This quote only started to spread in the second half of the 2010s, however, and searches for Baldwin's writing reveal no such quote.
That is because in reality, author Robert Jones Jr. — who, like Baldwin, is Black and gay — is the one who wrote and posted these words on Aug. 18, 2015, on his now-defunct X account (formerly Twitter), @sonofbaldwin. He preserved a screenshot of his tweet, which is now saved on his website, sonofbaldwin.com:
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Jones wrote and curated the blog Son of Baldwin for years, before publishing his first novel, "The Prophets," about two enslaved Black men in the 19th-century U.S. South who fell in love. He followed in Baldwin's footsteps in several ways, including by continuing to explore society from the point of view of a Black queer man and by approaching his topics with lucid sincerity.
We have written about other Baldwin's quotes in April and May 2024.
Sources:
'Robert Jones, Jr.' Robert Jones, Jr., https://www.sonofbaldwin.com/. Accessed 14 June 2024.
'The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.: 9780593085691 | PenguinRandomHouse.Com: Books'. PenguinRandomhouse.Com, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622773/the-prophets-by-robert-jones-jr/. Accessed 14 June 2024.
'TruthSayers: Robert Jones Jr. - Creator of Son of Baldwin – AWAACC'. The August Wilson African American Cultural Center, https://awaacc.org/event/truthsayers-robert-jones-jr-creator-of-son-of-baldwin/. Accessed 14 June 2024.
