In a particularly searing passage in The Fire Next Time Baldwin accuses his country and his fellow countrymen of the crime of having destroyed, and continuing to destroy, hundreds of thousands of lives without knowing it or wanting to know it. For Baldwin, this is such a serious crime that neither he nor time nor history will ever forgive them for it.

For the victims of racism across the globe, it is necessary to be tough and philosophical about death and destruction. But for those responsible for such utter devastation, it is the very innocence they display—they do not know what they are doing or care to know—that, for Baldwin, constitutes the crime. It is simply not permissible for the authors of global death and destruction to hide behind their innocence to escape moral culpability for their actions.