
When James Baldwin wrote about the Atlanta child murders - prismatic
https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/when-james-baldwin-wrote-about-the-atlanta-child-murders
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data_ders
I didn't know JB wrote a book about this! His prose is def in my top 5.
Groundbreaking for the time. This article mentions him as a "big name" but I'd
argue he should have been more famous

~~~
acqq
Here's the review of the book from 1985:

[https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-
xpm-1985-10-20-850311...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-
xpm-1985-10-20-8503110680-story.html)

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keiferski
Baldwin was really a fascinating person. He traveled quite a bit around
Europe, too, and wrote some of his most known work in Istanbul, which I always
found an interesting juxtaposition to the way he is usually portrayed. I agree
with his thought that’s it’s easier to view America from the outside. IIRC
Fitzgerald wrote most of Gatsby while in France, which seems to confirm the
idea. It’s a shame Baldwin isn’t more well-known.

[https://www.theguideistanbul.com/james-
baldwin/](https://www.theguideistanbul.com/james-baldwin/)

~~~
Quequau
It has also been my experience that it’s easier to view America from the
outside. Though I find this excruciatingly painful to convey to folks that I
know who have never lived any where else.

~~~
dorchadas
I've found this holds true for me as well. My entire view of America shift
after I spent only a _semester_ abroad in Ireland, and it was all from being
able to sit back and view it from a distance.

I've also found that this holds true for smaller levels as well. My hometown
is fairly rural and in a high poverty county, yet people don't want any
better. Since I moved out, I realized that's because it's all they've ever
known; they don't really realize there is a difference than living there,
doing the same things as adults they did as high schoolers, etc. It's just a
vicious cycle, as that mindset gets passed on to their kids as well, and
fosters quite a bit of anti-intellectualism in the mix (which I see as a
teacher there now, though I don't live there).

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jonny_eh
Same case featured in season 2 of Mindhunters on Netflix.

~~~
echelon
I was incredibly disappointed they didn't film in Atlanta. Though most of the
season takes place in the Atlanta metro, it's very obviously filmed elsewhere.
None of the filming locations actually resemble Atlanta. As an Atlanta
resident, I found it uncanny and jarring.

It's doubly strange considering Atlanta has generous film subsidies and tax
breaks, making it one of the nation's top filming locations. They might have
saved money shooting here. Stranger Things and a host of other Netflix shows
are based here.

I don't normally nitpick about something like this, but it frequently took me
out of the story.

~~~
lsiebert
Several people who worked on the show are on the Pennsylvania Film Industry
Association Board, and it was filmed in and around Pittsburgh. Maybe that had
something to do with it.

That said I believe I read an article suggesting that Netflix plans to not
film in Atlanta because of a variety of conservative laws passed in the state
of Georgia. That was post the 2018 filming of Mindhunter season 2, but it may
affect future shows and films.

~~~
echelon
All the production companies threatened to leave, which we all thought was
paradoxical. Why pull blue votes out of a nearly purple state? Don't
concentrate the blue.

Georgia courts overthrew the heartbeat bill, as was predicted. The executive
branch is shopping around for a district to pass an abortion law, fight it in
court, then elevate it to the supreme court. That should terrify everyone.
They think they can win at the highest court.

Before covid-19, there were over 30 big ongoing productions. Netflix, Disney,
HBO, and Amazon all have major shows filming here:

[https://www.11alive.com/mobile/article/entertainment/televis...](https://www.11alive.com/mobile/article/entertainment/television/programs/the-
a-scene/what-tv-shows-and-movies-are-currently-filming-in-
georgia/85-926ce138-f763-453c-a446-3715ad81c527)

~~~
throwaway441
> That should terrify everyone

No, some of us on HN are adamantly against abortion. I'm far left on almost
every issue except that one.

~~~
jbaber
I don't share your opinion, but thanks for listing it (please do so wherever
you can). The left need to remember people like you exist.

~~~
watwut
People often express that left should remember right, be nice and
understanding to them. The opposite expectation is rarely stated.

It is kind of interesting.

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dajohnson89
For anyone interested in learning more about Baldwin, _I Am Not Your Negro_ is
a documentary about him that was nominated for an oscar back in 2017.

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scandox
One of my favourite quotes from The Evidence of Things Not Seen:

"The dream of safety can reach culmination or climax only in the nightmare
orgasm of genocide."

There's a preamble to it, but it's an incredibly powerful idea to me. We live
in a radically unsafe universe and our death is inevitable. Safety is a
delusion.

