...And knowing that identity is not simply defined by what we are, but what we are not, can it be that our police help give us identity, by branding one class of people as miscreants, outsiders, and thugs, and thus establishing some other class as upstanding, as citizens, as Americans? Does the feeling of being besieged serve some actual purpose?"
I am not white. The Nigger has never been of any use to me so, unfortunately, I don't think the question is mine to answer. I do have my theories, though. I imagine, like Coates seems to, that identifying blacks as this country's criminals helps white Americans dismiss their own criminal activity as incidental (teenage drug use, insider trading, mass shootings, etc). But I think it also must help to organize their fear in an uncertain world. Like "Goldstein" in Orwell's 1984, perhaps the Nigger gives white Americans something specific to fear so they don't fear everything—including themselves and each other.
Ultimately, the contrast between the reality of black crime and this nation's perception of it reveals just how invested in the myth of the Nigger America actually is. And, as protesters push forward and leaders federal and local circle around "community policing" as reform, Baldwin's question will only become more urgent. White Americans of good conscience will have to confront their boogeyman head on. Because the truth is that there can be no "community policing" in black communities without engaging the community, without engaging black people and our distortion in the American imagination.
Donovan X. Ramsey is a multimedia journalist whose work puts an emphasis on race and class. Donovan has written for outlets including MSNBC, Ebony, and TheGrio, among others. He's currently a Demos Emerging Voices fellow.