The thrill was in the prose, in Baldwin’s capacity to wed the intimate and the universal and to make of his life an offering to generations of readers, including those whose experiences were far removed from his own. But the destabilization mattered more. Baldwin’s language upended the order of my understanding, as a political theorist-in-training, and as a white American.
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The word “stories” was used often at the annual NABIP Capitol Conference, held in the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, February 25-28, 2024. I went because I have my own stories of frustration with health care, and because I am interested when someone seems ready to try to make things better in the largely incomprehensible and vaguely menacing system we all rely on.
