African-American studies professor emeritus Cornel West GS’80discussed problems facing the present-day Black population in a lecture on Thursday, saying that Black people need to confront the injustice against them by refusing to give in or compromise early, and turning to love and justice rather than anger.
Eddie Glaude Jr., professor of religion and African-American studies and chair of Center for African-American studies, and Imani Perry, professor of African-American studies, joined West for the conversation.
West was recently detained by police during a scuffle at the Ferguson Police Department.
West said that the truth about life as a Black person in the United States is too often hidden because Black Americans are too scared to take a risk by telling it. Besides, he explained, various media organizations today lack the commitment to truth they ought to have.
West said that these “corporate media, oligarchs and plutocrats” are primarily White, and the few Black people among those ranks have assimilated to the capitalist and white supremacist culture.’
According to West, institutions like the University still have a lot of “catching up” to do with regard to race.
“Never has any Ivy League institution, with all of its greatnesses and all of its blindnesses, been on the cutting edge on the struggle for justice,” West said. “They catch up, because it takes a while for an institution, with such longevity of white supremacy, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, given the vision of those grand Presbyterians who started the place.”
West emphasized the importance of fighting for freedom in this context, saying that activists should not give in or compromise early.
“I don’t believe in being polite in public when a person’s children are being shot down,” West said. “I don’t believe in being polite in the face of rights being violated.”
When Glaude brought up the question of what it means to “live the life of the mind,” West responded that, while an academic focuses exclusively on highly specialized forms of knowledge, an intellectual takes these specialized forms of knowledge one step further to benefit the pubic.
West stressed the need to step outside of the academic bubble and form “an organic link with organized struggle.”
The panel also discussed what it means to be human. West identified honesty, decency and virtue as the three main values that individuals should strive to uphold, explaining that it is important to have a sense of higher goal, moral and spiritual standing.He said he lamented that society is on a decline because this standing is now the road less taken.
Glaude similarly emphasized the need to constantly reach for a higher goal. Keeping the question in mind, of who one takes oneself to be, will provide a constant “central gravity to bring [one]self back into alignment,”Glaude said.
West acknowledged that racial tension is a plight shared by many ethnic minorities, not just Black Americans. Black rage, however, is often perceived to be a more significant threat to society than the rage of other ethnic minorities.
“Black rage could bring down the curtain on the American democratic experiment,” West said.
West said that, in the century-long fight for Black rights, some Black people have “turned on each other, themselves, their souls, hearts, minds and bodies.”
While the instinctive response might be hatred or revenge, West said that love and justice should play a central role in the pursuit of black rights.
The event, titled “In Conversation with Dr. West,” took place at 4:30 p.m. in McCosh 50 and was sponsored by the Center for African American Studies.
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