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Hello and welcome again to African Elements. In this episode, why pursue Black Studies?
What is the significance of Black Studies in higher education? Is it just a "feel good"
topic for students of African descent to pursue? Also, we look at the contributions that Black
Studies as a discipline has made in academia. How has the Black Studies pioneered and developed
theories and approaches to problems in ways that have added to academia and society as
a whole? Is Black Studies solely for the consumption of Black students? Should it be? Why should
Asian, Latino, or White students have an interest in pursuing Black Studies? All that coming
up next. As we saw in episode 1 on the origin of black
studies, Black Studies came about as a result of centuries of struggle to overcome systematic
institutionalized oppression. To this day black studies remains closely aligned with
social protest, student activism, and social justice. In this program, when I use the term
social justice, I'm defining it as the equal distribution of advantages and disadvantages
within a society. That does not necessarily mean that everybody has to have the same material
stuff. What it does mean is that if one does happen to be poor that should not mean being
left behind during a natural disaster such as the one that took place in New Orleans
during hurricane Katrina in 2005. It means that if one does happen to be poor, that shouldn't
mean having one's life cut short by preventable diseases. Social justice means applying the
same standard of justice to the rich and to the poor, as opposed to a justice system in
which wealthy people who happen to be caught abusing illegal drugs are sent to drug rehab,
while poor people are sent to prison for the same offense. Social justice means that being
poor, being vulnerable, being a racial, ethnic, or *** minority will not have bearing on
your fundamental right to exist. As Cornel West, Professor of African American, and Religious
Studies at Princeton University explains, social justice means putting poor and vulnerable
people at the center of how we view the world. AG:Do you share Carl Dix's criticism of President
Obama's Father's Day speeches? CW: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think that
it's quite telling that he would give personal responsibility speeches to black people, but
not a lot of personal responsibility speeches to Wall Street in terms of execution. And
when you actually look at the degree to which issues of accountability for poor peopleóbut
where's the accountability when you're bailing out these Wall Street elites, $700 billion?
That's socialism for the rich. That's your policy. Don't then go to these folk who are
locked into dilapidated housing, decrepit school systems, many on their way to a prison-
industrial complex, and talk about their fathers didn't come through. And we know the fathers
got problems. We understand that. But there are structural institutional challenges that
he's not hitting, hitting head on. And I should say this, too, I think, in terms of
style, that the Obama administration is obsessed with the wrong Lincoln. They are obsessed
with the Lincoln who they think moved to the right and was trying to create bipartisan
consensus with conservatives, whereas we know there's no Lincoln without Frederick Douglass.
There's no Lincoln without Harriet Beecher Stowe. There's no Lincoln without Wendell
Phillips or Charles Sumner. That was a social movement.
. . . And if he doesn't understand the greatness of Lincoln was responding to the social movements
of working people and poor people, he's going to end up with a failed presidency, with a
lot of symbolic gestures, but, on the ground, everyday people, those Sly Stone called "everyday
people," suffering still . . .Most importantly, at this moment, we
come together and say, put poor and working people at the center of the way you look at
the world, not just in the terms of the United States, but in terms of the American empire's
impact on those Frantz Fanon called "the wretched of the earth."
AG:So, how are you going to be the Frederick Douglass?
CW: Well, by working with a variety of othersórevolutionary communists to socialists, to progressive liberals,
to prophetic Judaic, prophetic Christian, prophetic Hindus and othersóto constitute
some motion, raising voices, lifting the voices, which is the anthem of black people, and then
to create ways of organizing and mobilizing so that the Obama administration does not
remain mesmerized by the Wall Street elites and seduced by neoliberal policy.
AG:Have you been talking to President Obama? CW: No, not at all. No, no.
AG:Have you met him? CW: Oh, I met him initially, in order to join
the campaign. Oh, absolutely, indeed. We met for four hours.
AG:And now, since he's become president? CW: Oh, no, no. I think he holds me at arm's
length. And for good reason, and for good reason. Because he knows that there's a sense
in which I would rather be in a crack house than a White House that promotes neo-imperial
policies abroad and neoliberal policies at home.
AG:Why a crack house? CW: Because a crack house, at least I'm in
solidarity with folk who are sensitive to a pain. It's just that they have the wrong
response to their pain. Instead of being in a crack house, they ought to be organizing.
But they're dealing with their suffering. They're just dealing with it in the wrong
way. The White House, escaping from the suffering, and that's why I keep my distance. I'm not
against people who work inside of the White House; it's just not my calling. That's
not what I'm here for. ... You could say, "Waterboarding is torture." Wow, that's a
breakthrough. What are you going to do about it? It's a crime against humanity are you
going to enforce it? "Well, we're not thinking about that." Well, that's the challenge. Don't
tell me something obvious like, waterboarding is torture. We could say the same thing about
wiretapping. Is wiretapping criminal? Yes! Then how come you're not going to prosecute?
"No, we're moving forward." Oh really? You don't do that for Jamaal on the corner when
he gets caught with crack. You send him to jail. The rule of laws are going to be equal
for the well-to-do and the poor? Aww, that's where the challenge is. That's where we need
to mobilize -- multi- party, multi-tendencies, multi-organizational alliance -- and it's
going to take a while because the euphoria around the Obama administration is just beginning
to wane, and the euphoria is understandable as we noted before, you know. A black man
in the White House is still a breakthrough, but it's a small, small "b." We're looking
for the breakthrough for working people and poor people.
Since social justice is so integral to the very core of black studies as a discipline,
one of the ways in which black studies has contributed to academia as a whole has been
in forwarding a pioneering social theory that social justice is not simply something that
those in power may choose bestow on the most poor, oppressed, and vulnerable in society
because it makes them feel good. Black studies teaches us that social justice is actually
critical in holding together the very fabric society, and that those in power would do
well to promote social justice not simply out of benevolence, but out of a sense of
self preservation. The very formation of black studies as a discipline is a very testament
to how this theory of social justice works in the real world. At the height of the Civil
Rights and Black Power movement, the systematic oppression and subjugation of black people
threatened to tear the country apart. In response, National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,
more commonly known as the Kerner Commission, was convened by President Lyndon B. Johnson
on July 28, 1967 in the wake of a series of urban rebellions that took place in the Los
Angeles community of Watts, and in Chicago in 1965, as well as in Newark and Detroit
in 1967. Framed as a National Security issue, President Johnson commissioned the body to
seek answers as to what exactly to place in these uprisings, why they took place, and
what can be done to prevent future uprisings. In what is probably the most frequently quoted
line of the report, the Kerner Commission warned that, "Our nation is moving toward
two societies, one black, one whiteóseparate and unequal."
The report identified white racism a main cause of urban violence and urged the creation
of new jobs, new housing, and a stop to de-facto segregation as well as government programs
to provide needed services, in addition to more diverse and sensitive law enforcement
agencies.While the Johnson administration largely ignored the report's findings and
recommendations, as we saw in the previous episode, a climate of civil unrest was a major
factor in the creation and development of Black Studies on colleges and universities
nationwide. Amidst a climate desegregation, although ñ albeit necessarily not with "all
deliberate speed" - African American students slowly made their way onto institutions of
higher education. As they did so, however, they often found themselves subject to the
same racism and marginalization as they experienced in their communities. They found that their
histories and experiences were largely not reflected in the curriculum, their food could
be found in the cafeteria, and their presence could not be found in school governance and
leadership. The outcome was predictable. As black people were rebelling against racism
and social injustice in cities throughout the nation, the presence of those same factors
gave rise to a series of student protests on college and university campuses. On November
5, 1968, under the threat of building takeovers and a campus strike at San Francisco State
University, a coalition of Black and Asian, Latino, and Native American students, from
the Black Students Union and the Third World Liberation Front, presented the San Francisco
State College president with a list of fifteen nonnegotiable demands for institutional change.
Among them the school was to immediately establish departments of Ethnic Studies and Black Studies.
They demanded no fewer than seventy full-time faculty members, fifty for the departments
of Ethnic Studies and twenty for Black Studies. Further, they demanded self determination
and autonomy in that the new departments would be controlled solely by the faculty, students,
and community groups were to be "free from interference by college administrators, or
the statewide Board of Trustees." They demanded that the college accept all Black and nonwhite
students who applied for admission in the fall of 1969, regardless of their academic
qualifications. They demanded that new departments should be degree-granting, and finally, that
no disciplinary action could be taken against any students, teachers, or administrators
should they take part in the campus strike, that would follow if any of their demands
were rejected. As tensions mounted between the coalition of students demanding institutional
change, and conservative elements within student government, acts of civil disobedience became
interspersed with spats of more radical means of resistance. Hundreds of small fires were
set, and eight bombs were detonated over the course of the student strike. Over the course
of the next several months, San Francisco State University became the first campus in
the nation to become continuously occupied by police presence. Although there were no
deaths attributed to the strike, the threat of violence was real, and San Francisco State
University ultimately chose to take the recommendations of the Kerner Commission to heart and implement
some institutional change as a countermeasure against social uprising. Thus, San Francisco
State University approved the nation's first four year curriculum in Black Studies in the
1967-1968 academic year. The student revolts that gave rise to black studies happened alongside
similar uprisings in the Asian and Chicano/latino student communities, and oftentimes they took
place as part of the united front. Thus, Asian studies, Chicano latino studies, and Gender
studies come from a similar efforts from marginalized communities in their struggles toward social
justice. For that reason, Black Studies theories and methodologies have much to offer to their
sister disciplines. WEB Dubois writings on the color line and dual consciousness, that
is, the dilemma African Americans face in constantly having to negotiate the boundaries
of living simultaneously living in two worlds (black and white) are works that Asians, Latinos,
women, and *** minorities may find value in. The African-American experience in terms
of citizenship in the United States - granted by the 14th amendment to the constitution
-is an experience that the immigrant community may find value in especially in light of the
current backlash on the immigrant community in Arizona in which citizens and noncitizens
alike who come from immigrant backgrounds are faced with a whittling away of their civil
rights. Some have even considered a partial repeal of the 14th amendment such that the
children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States would not be given citizenship
rights. As far as the African-American experience -we've been there and done that, and the country
would do well to look two that experience as well as the experience of Jim Crow before
we go any further down this very dangerous road. By the same token, black studies, and
black students, have much to gain in engaging Asian Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies, and
Gender Studies. The brilliant contributions of the late Gloria Anzaldua have in many ways
succeeded those of WEB Dubois. She writes as a Latina, a woman, a second generation
Mexican immigrant, and a lesbian and the notion of border crossing along multiple borders
(that is the cultural boundaries between the various aspects of her identity). Is it possible
to exist as a Latina in a United States society that devalues that aspect of who she is? How
does one negotiate being a woman in a US and Latino society with strong notions of male
supremacy? How is it possible to exist as a lesbian within a context that looks upon
homosexuality with disdain? These are questions that Gloria Anzaldua deals with that bring
dual consciousness to a whole new level - a level of multiple consciousness. I believe
black studies would do well to add some of those theories and perspectives into a discipline
that encompasses people of multiple identities especially when black people of diverse backgrounds
are often in such close contact. Why is it that when you visit the cafeteria on your
campus you often see African Americans and Africans (immigrants from Africa) sitting
at different tables? What about Blacks from the Caribbean? Are they just as black as black
folks from Mississippi? What about black folks who happen to be gay or lesbian? Are the just
as black as straight black folk? The social critique of Gloria Anzaldua may be helpful
in helping students of Black Studies wrestle with those questions.
Finally, what about white students? What do they have to gain from black studies? What
is it like to experience the United States as a person of African descent, and what insights
can a person gain by looking at that experience? Again, Cornel West shares his insights at
an event that I hosted at Sonoma State University. A warning to viewers, this excerpt does contain
language that some consider to be offensive, but Dr. West uses the language to make it
very eloquent point: . . . And we need is so very badly today,
especially after 9-11 . . . Especially after 9-11. Never in the history
of the nation have all Americans felt unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence and
hated for who they are. It's a new experience any Americans. Many white brothers and sisters,
to me, "You know, brother West, I just can't get over this sense of being hated like this."
I say, "You don't say! Really?! Oh! That's a novel thing, huh?" "Yeah, I just don't like
it." I say, my dear brother, to be a *** in America for 400 years is to be unsafe,
unprotected, subject to random violence, and hated for who you are. So, we've got some
experience that might be useful. We've got some experience that might provide some insight
for the nation itself to access the best of its past and its present, now that the whole
nation in that particular sense has become "niggerized." What kind of resources are
available for that nation? Will they remain socratic? Self critical? Or will it become
self righteous? Will they remain prophetic or will it become revengefull? Let's look
it certain moments in black history when black folk had to respond to vicious forms of degradation
called terrorism. What did Emmet Till's mother say when she stepped to the lectern when her
baby, Emmet, shot down by American ... murdered by American terrorists in Mississippi August
1955. You all know who Emmet Till was? She brought his body back to Chicago. They said
under no circumstances will we allow the coffin to be open. She said, "This is my only baby.
I'm 32 years old, and my husband fought in the Jim Crow army against a vicious xenophobe
named Hitler, carrying the U.S. flag, and now his baby is now the victim of American
terrorism. We go'n keep that coffin open. And they did keep that coffin open in Chicago,
didn't they? And 50,000 citizens of all colors - the first major civil rights demonstration,
three months before a black sister named, Rosa Parks sat down in order to stand up for
justice in December, 1955. And what did she say when she stepped to the lectern - tears
flowing, socratic juices still at work - looks over the lectern, her baby's head is five
times the size of his ordinary head, and the coffin is open? And she says, "I don't have
a minute to hate, I'm gonna pursue justice for the rest of my life! What level of spiritual
maturity and moral wisdom and courage to still both critique, but also the care and to love
went into that statement. She's not isolated. This is a tradition that produced her. That
took very seriously the interrogation of dogma like white supremacy, but yet at the same
time she refused to get in the gutter with cowardly gangsters who killed her baby because
she didn't have to read Shakespeare's, The Merchant of Venice, to know that the law can
be bent one way or the other. Against Shylock or for him or, against Portia or for him.
She didn't have to listen to the quality of mercy speech of Portia, then Portia herself
was unable to enact. She had already been molded by something else that said, "I'm still
not gonna hate! I'm not gonna hunt them down like cockroaches. I'm not gonna exercise
of vengeance and revenge. I'm not gonna be manichaean, thinking that somehow, I'm purely
good and they are purely evil. No! I'm deeper than that! Martin had the same challenge when
four young sisters in Birmingham were victims of American terrorism. 16th St. Baptist Church,
you will know what I'm talking about, September 1963. The only time Brother Martin cried in
public. Didn't know what to say. Wondering whether this non violence was a hoax and anyway.
People gonna be killing babies like that in church, in Sunday school. He looks of the
parents. Tears flowing again. What does he say? "Somehow we've got to muster the armors
of love and justice." This is a great people at their best! At their best! And it's a
human potential for any people at their best!
As Cornel West is fond of saying, there's
much that society at large can gain from the experience of a "blues" people, a people whose
unique experience provides fresh new perspectives and insights. That does it for this episode.
Join me next time for a look into the African past. We explore rise and fall of powerful
and wealthy African kingdoms as well as the fateful path they took that ultimately led
to the Atlantic slave trade -the trafficking of millions of human beings from West Africa
to the Americas.