Love as moral-political labor

James Baldwin treated love not as sentimental feeling but as an active, scarce labor that holds social life together and prevents despair. Contemporary commemoration that turns Baldwin into a mythic figure risks turning that practice into a badge rather than renewing the day‑to‑day moral effort his work demands. — If public memory substitutes canonization for practice, it eases political complacency and weakens ongoing struggles over race and sexual justice.