It is interesting that my college experience differs from that of both
of you. I went to a traditionally Black college. It had been integrated
in the 1950s, but by the time I got there it was still largely Black. I
would estimate that the student body was about evenly split between
whites and Blacks, but I think the Black students outnumbered the whites
a little. It was largely a commuter college and most of the commuters
were white, so after dark the campus became a good deal darker in more
ways than one. Then there was a significant number of foreign students.
They were mostly Thai and Iranian with a smattering of Nigerians and
other nationalities. On the whole whites were in the minority. The
faculty was also a mix.
On 1/3/2018 3:15 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Like you, Miriam, I was a sociology major...my second go around. I
was a History major back in 1954, when I still had vision. But I
dropped out. I returned in 1967 as a blind student, and took
Sociology and Psychology.
On the campus of the University of Washington, both in the 50's and
the late 60's there were almost no people of any color other than
White. A smattering of Asians and a very few Black athletes. Until
1955 when the University added Luther(Hit and Run)Carr and Credelle
Green to the varsity football team, no Black athletes attended the
school. I can't recall a single professor who was not pure White and
Male. I did finally have a woman professor, Miss Tufts, a psychology
professor. I also had a young Japanese instructor, a T A. The class
was Social Psychology Statistics. A required course. The Professor
spoke in rapid fire bursts, sort of like a Tommy gun. When I would
ask him to explain what he just said, he would simply raise his voice
and shout the same words. So I thought that at least in the study
section I could ask the T A. This young man must have just left the
boat. His English was so bad that I actually believed he was speaking
in Japanese. I had to pass this class. Two other blind students were
in the same class. One of them took the class three times and the
last time she took a Pass Fail, and squeaked through. The other
fellow dropped the class until he learned how I earned a B, and then
he did the same thing. I'm not proud of it, but I found an older
woman who had just passed the class with an A. I asked her if I could
hire her to "coach" me. She took the job and began pulling me through
the material. The professor asked her if she would read the exam to
me. She did. And what a shameful performance on my part. She would
ask me a question, and I would hem and haw and jabber until she would
say, "We read that last week. You know it was...", and she spoke the
answer, wrote it down and moved on.
In my defense, and it's a pretty poor excuse at that, in all the years
I worked in the field, I never used a single word out of that
class...at least I don't think I did...
Frankly, I would have been pleased with a C. To make matters worse, I
told my blind friend what I had done, and she wouldn't speak to me for
the rest of the quarter.
Anyway, it was a White World back then. And remember, in 1954 I paid
only $50 per quarter for a 15 hour load. And it only took a C plus
grade point to enter the U of W. Still, few persons of color found
their way to that campus. In 1956, when I studied professional
photography at Edison Tech, in Seattle, there were great numbers of
Black students. The cost to attend Edison was $80 per year. In my
class were two Japanese students, a Chinese fellow, two Black students
and five women. The class had around 12 to 15 students.
Even in those days when we didn't question much of what went on around
us, I remember thinking it was odd that there were some very bright
students attending Edison Tech, who could easily have made the grade
in college.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/3/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
When I was in college, I majored in Sociology. The only African American
professor I had was in the Sociology Department and I had one course with
him. I don't remember what the name of the course was or anything about it
except for one class. This was in, perhaps, 1957 and he began talking with a
great deal of emotion about how the educated, middle class African Americans
were not caring enough about, or doing enough for poor black people. Well,
I'm sure back then he referred to them as Negro people. But his point was
that the wealthier Negroes were deserting their poorer brothers and sisters.
I'd never heard that thought expressed before that class, I don't think. So
here we are and Cornell West was talking about the same thing in 2017.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2018 11:50 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Cornel West: We Live in One of the Darkest
Moments in American History
Wise words...
"I have nothing against black success,
but I can't stand black success when it generates an indifference toward
black poor people." Cornell West:
On 12/30/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Cornel West: We Live in One of the Darkest Moments in American History
By Hope Reese, JSTOR
30 December 17
We live in one of the darkest moments in American history," Cornel
West begins his new introduction to the 25th-anniversary edition of
Race Matters, published on December 5, 2017. West, a philosopher,
political activist, and one of America's most provocative public
intellectuals, wrote Race Matters a year after the LA race riots,
which left more than 50 people dead and more than 2,000 injured in the
spring of 1992.
But while West told me he was on the "edge of hope" when the book
first came out, he believes that the outlook on racial relations in
America is even bleaker now. Rather than citing President Trump as the
problem, West calls him a "sign of our spiritual bankruptcy." He is
equally critical of President Obama, who West cites as a symbol of the
neoliberal establishment, especially when it comes to his Wall Street
bailout and drone strikes.
I spoke with West, currently a professor of the Practice of Public
Philosophy at Harvard University, about why he thinks that Obama's
ascension should not be seen as a culmination of Malcolm X's activism,
the role of race in Trump's election, and his feelings about the
American flag. Here is our conversation, edited for length and
clarity.
When you wrote Race Matters, it was a dark time in terms of what was
happening with black Americans after the LA race riots. Now it's 25
years later. Did you expect things would improve? Are you surprised by
where the country is, in terms of racial relations?
History is always open-ended--unfinished and incomplete. I was hoping
that we would be able to move in a much stronger direction that tilts
towards empowering the weak and vulnerable in our society, but we've
moved in the exact opposite direction. I was at the edge of hope when
I wrote Race Matters 25 years ago. I have even less hope now, which
means we just have to fight that much more intensely. There's a sense
in which hope is as much a consequence of action as it is a cause of
action.
As things become more hopeless, we have to fight more intensely
because of issues of integrity, honesty, decency, truth, justice. You
have to choose ways of being in the world, even when it looks as if
you have very little chance of being victorious at the present moment.
You notice that discourse is shifting from poverty to diversity. Why
do you see that as a problem?
It's neoliberalism, which is this obsession with smartness and
richness and bombs dropped on other parts of the world and sometimes bombs
dropped here.
It tends to put the stress much more on access to middle-class status
and making that access more diverse--rather than attacking poverty,
ensuring jobs with a living wage, quality education, single-payer
healthcare. So the shift from attacking poverty--let's say Martin King
in 1968--to this obsession with diversity that you're getting in the
Supreme Court in relation to affirmative action, was a dilution and a
domesticating of the issue.
One of the ways of making sure you sanitize any talk about racism is
to talk about diversity.
You write that the "Black managerial and middle class must take
responsibility for too often being callous and indifferent to its
Black poor and working class citizens." Can you explain that a little
more?
We lost sight of attacking issues of poverty, class--with the death of
Martin-and moved into an obsession with having black faces in high
places.
As long as we had those black faces in high places, the poor could
live symbolically through them, vicariously through them. Or those
black faces themselves, middle class and upper middle class, could
claim that somehow they were the index of progress. Whereas the real
index of progress is ensuring that when you're living in poverty, you
have a quality education for everybody--not ensuring you have more
kids at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Now it's a beautiful thing when you've got black kids at Harvard,
Yale, and Princeton, but if that's your index of progress, then we
forget about the masses of everyday black people.
Thank God we've got William Barber and Liz Theoharis leading the poor
people's campaign during the Trump years, but the issue of focusing on
poverty is something that ought to hold across the board if we are to
have any moral authority. Same is true in terms of Martin Luther King
Jr.:
concerned about bombs dropped in Vietnam killing Vietnamese babies. He
knew he was going to be unpopular, but he had to preserve his moral
integrity.
So
it is with the drone strikes. Under Bush, we had what? 53 drone strikes.
That was a war crime because they were killing innocent people.
You got more than 550 under President Obama, and [the C.I.A.] said,
"We have not killed one civilian." It turns out they were lying. Those
are war crimes, too, but we lose our moral authority as a people and
as a movement if all we can engage in is strategic language rather
than serious moral critique of evil and injustices.
President Obama represented a symbol of the highest achievement for a
Black American. Is there a danger of complacency by reading too much
into his election and forgetting everything that needs to be done to
improve race relations?
It's very clear that under Obama, you had a bonanza for black
middle-class folk that had careers in the academy. Who got books. Who got
careers on TV.
Who got jobs. Remember all the black folk who were on TV under Obama?
They were doing very well, but the black poor or the black working
class was still getting devastated. See, the police were still going
after them. They were privatizing schools under Arne Duncan, Obama's
secretary of education.
They were tightening up national security and surveillance to keep
track of different folks. Only one Wall Street criminal went to jail.
You can see how twisted the rule of law was.
The black middle classes are celebrating because they had the black
face with the highest place, The White House, so they've got access to
diversity jobs and so on. Magazines, TV, newspapers hiring black folk
like I don't know what. What I call the "rent a Negro" phenomenon.
They wouldn't last that long, which [they haven't]. Look on TV
now--you hardly see any black people. You ended up with this upper
middle class renaissance, but our poor and working class were
forgotten. When Tavis [Smiley] and I raised the issue of poverty and
poor people, it looked like we were hating Obama, as opposed to loving
black poor people.
It was cast in personal terms rather than cast in the moral terms of,
as a people, we, at our best, [have] always been concerned about all
of us--not just the top, highly successful ones. I have nothing
against black success, but I can't stand black success when it
generates an indifference toward black poor people.
You write that you worry about academics maintaining a critical
perspective while still maintaining an allegiance to the institution.
Can you talk about that boundary?
Well, the best of the academy is a love of truth, goodness, and
beauty. The worst of the academy is the commodification of the
academy, the marketization of the academy. It becomes nothing but
careerism and opportunism. That's true for anybody in the academy, not
just black people.
We've seen the academy become so thoroughly corporatized that it's
very much market-driven. It makes it difficult to make sure we're
committed to deep education as opposed to just market-driven
schooling. And there's the connection between the academy and
television, radio, social media, where everybody's for sale.
Therefore, the sellout becomes the norm. People can't wait to sell
themselves because they can't wait to be visible and highly public. We
end up losing a lot of serious moral substance, integrity, honesty,
and courage.
Why? Because people want popularity. Integrity is pushed back.
I've been very blessed 40 years in the academy. But I certainly intend
on being true to my calling, not just my career. I've been trying to
tell the truth about the White House, the Pentagon, the State
Department, Harvard, Yale, Princeton. The truth about anything. The
Black church, the black bourgeoisie. I'm not perfect, so I fall on my
face like everybody else. But that's what it is to be part of the
legacy of the Martin Luther King, Junior and Fannie Lou Hamers. Of
John Coltrane, Curtis Mayfield, Nina Simone.
Black
musicians set the standard. Radical freedom and love; radical love and
freedom.
What do you see as the role of race in the election of Trump?
There's no doubt that the vicious legacy of white supremacy was a
major factor in the Trump victory. The major factor, but not the only
factor. The other factor was the neoliberal policies that allowed for
a massive redistribution of wealth from poor and working people to the
top one percent. People were hungry for a populist message.
Then Trump comes along with a pseudo-populist message, tied to white
supremacy, but also tied to male supremacy. The issue of misogyny in
this election is fundamental. It amazes me how people could talk as if
it's all about racism and not say a mumbling word about patriarchy.
Patriarchy played a very important role. Homophobia and transphobia,
too. That's not to downplay racism--but it's not the only factor.
Issues of class are very important. The issue of homophobia is very
important. And, in foreign policy, this imperial machismo identity
that Trump had played an important role.
Do you see parallels between the Black movement and the women's movement?
How do they inform each other?
The similarity between white supremacy and male supremacy is that you
have elites who think they can do anything and treat anybody anyway
they want with no accountability, no answerability, no responsibility.
With sexual harassment, what you have is this misogyny, patriarchy, in
which men are treating women as if they can do anything they want with
no accountability at all and get away with it year in, year out,
decade in, decade out. And they got caught. Thank God for voices that
call for accountability. You see all these intellectuals, actors,
politicians across the board because we know patriarchy shot through every
institution in our society.
Well, male supremacy and white supremacy are the same. You treat black
people, brown people, red people, anyway you want and can get away with
it.
No responsibility. And Trump is the symbol of that. If anybody is a
gangster, to be a gangster is to exercise arbitrary power over others
in an abusive way and get away with it; to feel as if there's no
accountability, no answerability, no responsibility. Trump is the
ultimate American gangster right now. There's no doubt about it.
Movements like Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement sprung up
and have been facilitated by social media. What does it take for these
to be successful and long-lasting?
The movement for black lives now [includes] more than 40 organizations.
You've got many standing committees throughout the country meeting
regularly. We had a wonderful gathering in Boston just a few weeks
ago--not a lot of visibility but still very much consolidating,
solidifying. Same with Standing Rock, with our indigenous brothers and
sisters, continually organizing--not just around the pipeline, but
around a variety of different issues trying to preserve sacred land
and the respect of indigenous peoples.
Same with the feminist movement from below. In January, [it was] very
much corporate feminists. Then in March, feminism [came] from
below--poor women, working class women, lesbians, trans, and others,
that those movements are trying to institutionalize. They are very
much alive, and they're the ones to keep an eye on because they're
getting at the most fundamental issues and willing to pay the major
costs.
Your great-great uncle was lynched when you were just nine years old
and hung in an American flag. Colin Kaepernick recently made waves by
refusing to salute the flag--a gesture meant to bring light to the
oppression of Black Americans. What are your own feelings about the flag?
I want to salute brother Colin and brother Eric and the others--those
courageous, visionary athletes--to make this issue a crucial one. I am
first and foremost a Christian. For me, every flag is under the cross.
So often, the flag becomes an idol to worship or fetishize, to defer
before--whereas for a Christian like me, the cross signifies unarmed
truth, unconditional love. The flag is always a national symbol, and
that national symbol is under unconditional truth, unconditional
love--so the cross is always a critique of the flag. I never really
thought that the flag required my uncritical allegiance.
I acknowledge that the flag has been a symbol that people have been
willing to live and die for, in the name of the nation. And that's a
beautiful thing, relative to what the causes in the war are. Some wars
are unjust, you know. But without that unarmed truth and unconditional
love, you end up with a narrow nationalism, a chauvinism, a form of
idolatry that worships a nation rather than worships, for me, a God,
as a Christian.
We're at such a deeply divided time in our country. The two political
camps cannot seem to agree on facts or understand each other. How can
we bridge the divide?
Commit to acknowledging that each and every human being is made in the
image of God, regardless of what evil choices they make; that there's
still something that's worthy of a person being treated with love no
matter how cruel they are. That doesn't mean that you don't count on
their evilness and keep track of their evilness, but it doesn't
preclude or foreclose your ability to stay in contact with their
humanity. Also, everybody has a capacity to change. They don't have to
be frozen at the moment. A young gangster like Malcolm Little can
become a great prophetic voice in 20th century America called Malcolm
X--but it's all love that does that. Love can play a fundamental role
in changing people from gangsters to freedom fighters.
You've been critical of Ta-Nehisi Coates, saying that he is an example
of trying to "fit into" the neoliberal establishment. Can you explain
your criticism of his work?
His third book begins with the good negro government, with the
reconstruction governments, and goes directly to Obama as an example
of good negro government. I'm critical of that formulation precisely
because you got war crimes in the form of drone strikes. One percent
of the population got
95 percent of the income growth the first four years of the Obama
administration. You had a refusal to focus on the new Jim Crow for
seven years, and Wall Street got off scot free, with no criminal going
to jail, with free money, interest free, for three years, but students
have to pay interest rates and bail out Wall Street (and not bail out Main
Street).
Now,
if that's good negro government, I'm still critical of it.
On page 103 in [Coates'] text, he says that Barack Obama is a
culmination of Malcolm X's legacy, and there's another figure that one
can talk about--how he is our shining Black prince. It's a flagrant
misreading of black history.
Barack Obama is in no way the culminating moment of Malcolm X's
legacy, and I'll fight over that 'til the day I die.
That's a larger discussion. I'd like to sit down and talk to the brother.
Don't allow anybody to think that a moderate neoliberal head of an
American empire is the culminating moment of one of the greatest
critiques of White supremacy and capitalism and the American empire,
Malcolm X. Barack Obama's relation to Malcolm X is about as tight as
the relation of John Coltrane to some bluegrass singer. Just because
they're the same color doesn't mean that they're in the same
trajectory.
Do you think that Obama's unique position made his race more salient?
He couldn't just be a president, but he was seen to be a Black
president or representative? So there was no other way to even look at
him, where people felt like they had to choose a side?
That's absolutely right. He's head of a white supremacist empire, but
the important thing is if all you see is his color, and you don't see
his policies to what's going on with those drone strikes in Somalia
and Yemen and Pakistan, if you don't see the Wall Street friendly
people coming, the Tim Geithners and Larry Summers, who are running
his economic team. If you don't see [Joel] Brenner, who's coming out
of Bush's counter-terroristic group and heading Obama's
counter-terroristic group, if you don't see those continuities and all
you're seeing is skin color, then you're missing much of the picture.
It's not just white supremacy. It's white supremacy situated in a
relation to empire predatory capitalism, patriarchy, homophobia,
transphobia, and it's not just ideological. It's a matter of the
truth, and you're going to mislead people if you think that it's all about
race.
At one point, brother Coates says Obama was such a deeply moral human
being and one of the great Presidents, and you're thinking, "But what
is your definition of morality, because he assassinated three American
citizens with no due process?"
If George Bush did that, he wouldn't say that. But [Obama is] a black
man.
He's let off the hook. I don't let anybody off the hook.
You want to hold everyone to the same standard.
The same moral standard. Absolutely. That's what makes Black people
who we are. We are one of the greatest peoples in the modern world
because we have been one of the most hated people, but we've taught
the world so much about love and morality. That's what Martin Luther
King, Jr. stands for. That's what Franny Lou Hamer stands for. Once we
lose that, then we lose our moral credibility and our spiritual
integrity, and we become nothing but just folk obsessed with power
like everybody else. That's not who we are at our best.
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